


Accidental Magic

by BrokePerception



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, femmeslash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-31
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2017-11-06 11:19:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 35
Words: 37,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/418310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrokePerception/pseuds/BrokePerception
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione finally takes the step to leave her unhappy marriage, unable to keep fighting for what was possibly never meant to be. Ron doesn't let go that easily, convinced that the two of them belong together... which leaves its consequences. Hermione tries dealing with it all on her own, but is she truly that? - Under Construction</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ  Prologue  Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

**July 2019**

"I finally managed to get Hugo asleep..." Hermione announced, "He's been talking about basically nothing else but Hogwarts since having gotten his letter yesterday," walking into the little kitchen where Ron was busy to unwrap a cheap microwave cheeseburger. The lack of reply did not particularly alleviate Hermione's mood. "Ronald Weasley!" She hissed, thoughtful enough not to scream so that their children would wake up again. After having been reading for half an hour until Hugo's exhaustion had finally taken over, she didn't particularly feel like waking him or Rose if it wasn't necessary again. Ron immediately dropped the burger on the counter as he turned to Hermione. "I sometimes really doubt if you're listening. You don't even seem to care about your children anymore since our divorce."

Ron carelessly shrugged. "I never wanted to get divorced."

"You're changing the subject again."

"I'll never get why you wanted to get divorced," Ron continued, his ears beginning to turn scarlet. "We were happy together!"

"You thought we were happy together, but I hadn't been for a while… for years…"

"Why did you never talk to me then? Why didn't you just–?" "I tried, Ronald… but you wouldn't listen to anything that I said. You continued to act as if nothing was going on, as if I was exaggerating and just imagining things," Hermione returned, "and would you keep your voice down? The children are sleeping right upstairs." She pointed her finger up to emphasize what she said.

He stepped near her, taking hold of her arm. Hermione swallowed, as Ron's blue eyes bored into hers, and his voice was unusually soft as he spoke. It had been a while since she had heard it. "Please, 'Mione..." he began, letting his hand slowly trail up her arm." It would be so much better for the children if we could just, you know… try again."

Hermione's tear filled hazel eyes met his. She really hated when he used that, taking advantage of her emotions. "Would it really be so much better if our children saw us fight again every day? Please, Ronald, don't tell me it'll be different, this time, because it won't…"

Ron suddenly leaned in then, mouth connecting with hers. Hermione initially fought against the touch, then couldn't do anything anymore but give in. If she could believe her 'sources', Ron hadn't been missing any intimacy, but she hadn't really been touched in months and like every other human being, she too needed some. The need for air finally caused them to disconnect, and both of them panted as they eyed one another. "If you tell me that really didn't do anything to you, I'll–"

"Ronald, you're not being fair at all!" Hermione interrupted. "I love you, but–" "Then what's the issue?" Ron questioned, already leaning down to capture her delicious mouth with his again with an unmatched fierceness – one Hermione had never earlier experienced of him. She couldn't fight it as with ease, Ron lifted her on the kitchen counter.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

**August 2019**

There was a good reason why Hermione Granger hadn't gone to St. Mungo's or a Healer but to one of the numerous Muggle gynecologists in London. If not, half of the Wizarding world would already know now that she, the ‘brain’ of the Golden Trio, was having a third child, age thirty-nine, nearly eleven years after her only son and a year after her divorce. The _Daily Prophet_ would make an immediate headline of it, making the Wizarding world ponder about whom could be the unborn’s father. Predictable enough was that most would not anticipate it to be her ex-spouse's. The most unlikely of parties would be considered; the news would be related to the divorce –– many would go and assume unfaithfulness as a reason. She sighed; she knew she would have to deal with that anyway in not too long. She would begin to show in a few months’ time, and then all hell would break loose anyhow.

There was a good reason why she had Apparated to Hogsmeade, walking the remaining distance to Hogwarts' gates, and not just to Harry and Ginny or home. Pulling anyone –– especially Harry or Ginny –– in between Ronald and her was the last that she wanted to do. Ginny was after all still her ex's sister, no matter how good a companion Ginny Potter had been through the years and was still and no matter how good she really knew her brother and his sometimes unbearable behavior. She would want to know who had fathered this child, and Hermione would have to admit Ron had. Ginny and she had always had that unvoiced promise since their Hogwarts years to never keep secrets from each other, especially when asked about them. It definitely had been hard enough hiding her doubts and fears, which had begun to manifest in especially the last few days. She wasn’t really nauseous, like with Rose and Hugo, but her body now felt a little sensitive, like she felt when getting her period. She had attributed all that she had felt to her getting her period and the lack of sleep lately, but she hadn’t actually gotten that period…

Ron and she had not been living together anymore for now nearly two years, and it had been over a year since the end of their marriage was finalized, but still, Hermione Granger hadn't really adapted to the situation quite yet with her living back at her family home. That particular fact had remained fairly personal for only two months, until Rita Skeeter had somehow heard about the news and had begun to write, sprouting a lot of false rumors which were often painful and hard to ignore, even though Hermione knew that that was the best way to go about it all with Rita. She was after all known for always misconstruing everything, creating sensation and consternation.

She could well imagine Ginny saying that a reconciliation was better with a third child on the way, and although Hermione could see how and why this was a sensible suggestion, she couldn’t do it. Hermione knew that, deep inside, even though it had never really been mentioned, Ginny had never truly understood the how and why of the divorce, and that she was convinced Hermione and her brother really belonged together. Hermione knew that the Weasleys and her mother and father all shared the same opinion, and that was why she wasn’t keen on sharing the news with them. She chose not to ponder on how Ronald might react.

She just didn't know what to do, and thus she sought for the advice of the one person she knew would never judge her or her feelings but look at everything rationally and run through the options with her –– someone she felt she could rely on at all times; someone Hermione knew only ever would share her opinion when asked about it, without pushing, without prying. Those qualities were valued a truly great deal by Hermione, and always had been.

Hermione couldn’t imagine having the child adopted or aborted; she couldn’t imagine not having it, but she didn’t know just how to go about the situation. She never would have thought that she would get herself in this kind of situation, where adoption or abortion would ever even cross her mind. She nibbled her lip as she came to a halt at the tall gates of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and her grip on the baby’s first sonogram tightened into her left robe pocket.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Minerva McGonagall fleetingly smiled at the House-Elf called Elly Apparating beside her chair with the requested tea and biscuit tray. The Elf bowed deep in return after having set the tray down on the low table between Minerva and Hermione, then disappeared from sight with a nod and a bang. In quiescence, the former headmistress reached for the teapot, pouring both Hermione and herself a cup. She set the pot down again, taking hold of her cup and sipping carefully while clutching the porcelain between her fingers, eying the other woman over the rim of her eyeglasses. Years had gone by, and still Hermione again Granger looked as much like the pupil that had once attended Hogwarts as ever right then. She didn't immediately reach for her tea and was biting her bottom lip nervously, gazing down to nothing in particular.

Minerva serenely lowered her tea cup, delicately placing it into her lap. "What's the matter, Hermione?" she questioned. "I highly doubt you've come to visit your old professor for no reason at all, and if it wasn't really anything of importance, you would certainly have Owled."

Hermione at last lifted her gaze, unshed tears in the mocha of her eyes at what had made her come there –– that and the accuracy of Minerva’s words. When Hermione was back at Hogwarts to take N.E.W.T. studies, the line between being teacher and pupil had been somewhat blurred. Minerva McGonagall had, of course, remained flawlessly professional in her role of ‘teacher’, and nothing that could be frowned upon had really happened either, but having lived through a war which both of them had had such a crucial part in, had created some kind of bond, and so on Friday or Saturday evenings, Minerva and Hermione would occasionally have tea together and talk about what had happened in the year Hermione hadn't been at Hogwarts –– the year Minerva McGonagall for once had been clueless about the Gryffindor’s welfare. Transfiguration articles would be discussed at times, and at others the women would barely speak at all, enjoying each other's company. Then Hermione had graduated and immediately moved in with the Weasleys. Minerva and Hermione had certainly Owled each other, regularly –– at least at first –– and had enjoyed talking to each other when Minerva attended for Christmas and New Years at the Burrow and sometimes Easter. For the rest of the year, the women had never seen one another anymore, and in the end their letters by owl had come less often to rarely.

A lot had changed in twenty years. Hermione had become a wife and a mother of two, an ex… Yet at the same time things had somehow not changed at all. Even though Minerva McGonagall might be bordering on the age of ninety-four, her appearance hadn't really changed since she had been the other Gryffindor's teacher. She did no longer teach or run the school as a headmistress, but she had remained at Hogwarts, with Filius Flitwick as its Head. It wasn't necessarily that Minerva hadn't been able to do her tasks as a headmistress anymore, but after three grueling wars, having reigned Hogwarts for near two decades, time had come to let the younger ones replace her and let her live the rest of her maybe fifty or more years left peacefully.

Minerva and Hermione hadn’t seen each other since New Years, and still it felt like it had been only yesterday that they had had their conversation about the sensational article of Mrs. Oldknow in _Transfiguration Today_. Conversation had flowed between them incredibly easily, always had, yet now… The most meaningful thing that had not changed was Hermione's confidence in the older woman, that and her maybe childish belief that Minerva would be able to make everything better for her.

Guilt overwhelmed Hermione as teal colored eyes connected with soft mocha. "I'm sorry for not having contacted you as much…"

"That's alright," Minerva replied, sincerely. "You have been rather busy with your job at the Ministry and running a household with two lovely children."

"I should have made time to Owl you," Hermione said, finally reaching for her cup of tea, yet not lifting it to her lips. Minerva intuitively took her cup as well. "I should have done a lot of things that I didn’t." Hermione sighed upon seeing the confusion in Minerva's eyes, the question and pulled her hand from her left robe pocket, laying the heavily creased first tiny sonogram on the low table between them –– the reason for her visit.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Minerva’s eyes flickered to the item upon the table, before lifting up to meet Hermione's and hold them for a long moment. Finally averting her gaze, she then reached for the sonogram. She noticed a dark blur on the very left, surrounded by light grey. The picture was vague, and Minerva couldn’t quite recognize a child in it yet, but she knew what her former star pupil was trying to tell her. Words were not necessary. The ex-Headmistress tried to read the small text on the left. She squinted as she did.

“I'm five weeks along now,” Hermione whispered, having noticed. “I haven’t told anyone. You’re the first.”

Minerva laid the sonogram down on the table that separated them and turned her attention to Hermione entirely. She considered the situation carefully. At last, she said in a calm and unclipped tone, “I assume, given the fact that the news of the child that rests and develops in your womb now has resulted in this visit, and also given the state you’re in, that you had not calculated on conceiving last month at all?”

Hermione quietly shook her head to answer Minerva’s question, even though she knew it must have been rather rhetorical. Minerva McGonagall was a perceptive woman indeed, and it unnerved and comforted her at the same time, and she had had that effect on her since she first met the older witch.

She felt the need to elucidate, and Hermione desperately wanted to be able to say that she hadn’t acted foolishly and irresponsibly… but she couldn’t, because she felt that that was exactly what she had done. No day since had gone by that she hadn’t chastised herself for what had happened, even before she knew she was having a child again. She decided not to say anything at all; she couldn’t undo what had happened that night anyway, and it was the consequences she needed to focus on now instead. She loved her children dearly, and she knew she would love this third child as well, but so much had changed now since Hugo and Rose…

 “This came so very ill-timed,” Hermione whispered. “It hasn’t been one year since I got divorced. There’ll be questions and more rumors.”

Minerva watched as Hermione stood and began to pace, holding herself.

“This is not going to be easy, at all…” Hermione continued. “I'm thirty-nine years old, and I am under a lot of stress at the Ministry –– especially lately. I nearly miscarried already with Rose, when I was in my fourth month." She stopped at the window, looking through the layer of glass at the ripples in the Lake and the rest of the sunny landscape. She hadn't been there in quite a while and had forgotten how incredibly beautiful Hogwarts could be. She ripped her eyes away from the peaceful, natural scene below and turned back to Minerva, who had just remained seated.

“Hermione,” Minerva began when Hermione stopped. “I am not an intrusive person, and I won’t ask for you to share anything you don’t wish to, but I feel like there’s more to the story than you’re telling me. I am the first who knows, you say.”

“Indeed, you are,” Hermione said and nodded calmly, then sighed. “Ron's the father. We… I didn't mean for it to happen really, but it still did, and now I am having a child again, and I just don't know what to do. Well, I’ve got no intention of getting back together with him no matter what happens –– that is what I do know.”

“I agree that makes the situation you’re in difficult,” Minerva admitted.

“Incredibly so. I am so lost on what to do; I’ve occasionally wondered if it wouldn't be better for everyone to just never have this baby,” she muttered, then carefully raised her head to look at Minerva again. If Minerva was shocked in any way, she didn't show it.

Their eyes locked once more.

Silence overtook for a moment.

“Hermione… Whether or not you have this child is your, and I would say Mr. Weasley’s, decision only. There’s a plethora of options, and you’ll have to weigh them all very carefully.” Then Minerva’s voice changed to a far softer and fragile tone –– one that was very uncharacteristic for her and one which Hermione hadn’t heard before. “I can, however, say that although an abortion may seem like it is the solution that makes all undone, it isn't quite as easy at all. I’ve regretted that decision myself, very much.”


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

A bat of an eye was enough for Minerva McGonagall's words to penetrate, but Hermione didn’t have words. She didn’t know what to say at all.

Minerva knew that she couldn’t just leave it at that after an admission that had obviously surprised, if not slightly shocked, the other Gryffindor a great deal. She had not spoken of the matter in decades, and she hadn’t to many to begin with either. She hadn’t at all shared it unconsciously with Hermione, though. She knew that she had no right to influence Hermione’s personal decision, but she felt that it was of importance Hermione knew what she did, too, since she knew from her own experience that what the confused younger woman believed to be a way to undo what had happened was really a lot more than just that in more ways than anyone who hadn’t been there could ever possibly imagine. Minerva was aware that Hermione and she were very similar in a great many ways, and that was most likely part of the reason why she felt she could share it with her right then.

“I was unexpectedly with child, too, once,” she began, “but I didn’t have it. At first, I was glad that I didn’t, really, but that changed as time passed. I don’t ponder about it anymore as much as I used to, but occasionally, I still wonder how life could have been like, had I decided otherwise.”

Hermione could tell that it hurt Minerva McGonagall still a great deal to talk about what had gone on so many years prior, that it was a decision that really had haunted her. She could tell from how emotion swam in those deep green eyes that she had somehow always associated with strength in every possible interpretation.

Uncertainty.

Confusion.

“I met someone the summer I left Hogwarts. I had just gotten my first job, at the Ministry of Magic, in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He was the son of a farmer, a Muggle. He was very easy to talk to, though. It all happened fast, but… he made me laugh, and I felt comfortable with him. He was a handsome and clever boy, and he adored me… like I adored him. He proposed, and I happily accepted. At least, at first I did.”

Minerva’s words trailed off, and Hermione could see how green eyes glazed over with the still-painful memory. She reached for the older woman’s hand and squeezed gently, earning herself a small smile from her former professor, despite the fact that Minerva kept her gaze straight ahead, looking without really seeing whatever was in line of sight. “What happened?” Hermione whispered.

“I recall the day very well, and I doubt that I’ll ever manage to forget. My childhood definitely influenced my decision. My father was a Presbyterian Minister, my mother a witch. He never knew until I was born and showed clear signs of the magic my mother had tried to hide from him for so long, and she was forced to tell him the truth about herself and me and any other children that would come from their marriage. I can imagine that Father was at least a little shocked, but the marriage remained somehow intact. We didn’t talk about it much. Mother only spoke seldomly about it, and Father didn’t at all. However, though I know nothing of their marriage before that point, I reckon it broke something. Mother always abided by the Statute of Secrecy. I know that both Father and she, especially she, were really quite unhappy.

“I was excited to share the news with them and my brothers, but I just couldn’t. I recall how I walked in to find Mother had obviously been weeping. She tried to act like nothing at all had happened as she greeted me and continued to peel potatoes, but I always knew. My father was slumped before the television without really paying attention. That was what always happened when they had argued, and they argued a great deal. I recall going into my bedroom and beginning to ponder. I returned the ring the next morning, and that was the last time I saw him. I was afraid that my marriage with Dougal could be like that as well. I moved to London a few days later. I couldn’t take being confronted with it any longer.”

“I’m so sorry,” Hermione whispered. She didn’t know what else to say to it. She knew from experience the heartache that came with a failing marriage, but her own mother and father had always been happy together, as far as she knew, and she couldn’t fathom what it must have been like for Minerva to grow up with such unhappiness, and that within her home. She thought of her own children then, of Hugo and Rose. If not only for Minerva’s comfort, then certainly her own, she held the other woman’s hand into hers a little bit tighter.

“It has been a long time since,” Minerva spoke as she looked at their hands into her lap and took a breath to go on. “I realized I was with child just two weeks later. I had the most terrible morning sickness. I thought of being a single mother at first –– having it, raising it on my own –– but I hadn’t turned even eighteen years old yet, and I wasn’t certain that I could offer a child what it needed yet. I, however, was certain that I couldn’t carry it and give birth to it to let it be raised by other people. So I chose the other option…” Minerva shakily reached up to wipe at the tears that started to pool in the corners of her eyes. “I still don’t know if it was the right decision, any of it. I regret never having been a mother.”

“You would have made a great one,” Hermione whispered upon feeling Minerva’s regret and sadness wash over her.

“Possibly, but I’ll never know now.” Minerva finally lifted her gaze and made eye contact again. “I didn’t at first, but I often wonder how life might have been as a mother. I might not have been embittered then.”

“You’re not embittered.”

Minerva decided not to answer that. She gave a small smile and gently dislodged her hand from Hermione’s to reach for her now-tepid cup of tea. Hermione immediately felt the loss of the other woman’s warm hand encasing hers –– she only fully appreciated the comfort the gentle touch had offered her as well as she could no longer feel it. She tried not to let it show, though, and reached for her own cup of tea. She sipped from it, then held the cup in her lap and leaned back. “I just don’t know what to do,” she admitted. “I do know that I can’t keep my job at the Ministry if I decide to have this child. The stress has been a challenge to deal with for years now.”

Minerva nodded as she set her cup down. “You can always opt for a less stressful job no matter what you decide to do, Hermione.”

The younger Gryffindor sighed. “I’m thirty-nine.”

“Age also means experience. You have achieved a great deal at the Ministry since you started to work there, and I am certain that that will not be disregarded should you go look for another position somewhere else.”

Hazel connected with teal once more, and it struck Hermione then how very open and even tender the ex-Headmistress’ gaze was. She had never seen Minerva McGonagall that way, or if so, she didn’t recall it, and she was certain she would have had that been the case. She forgot what she had wanted to say and had to revisit her thoughts to find words. “That I’m with child won’t be just disregarded either, I am afraid. Even if I managed to find myself an agreeable job… ”

“What if it doesn’t have to be as hard as you believe it all to be?” Minerva questioned when Hermione’s words trailed off and she still hadn’t continued several moments later. “Actually, I may have a solution if that’s what you’re worried about. The headmaster may have rather.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

Minerva didn’t answer but heaved herself upright instead and leaning heavily upon her cane, slowly walked to her desk. Hermione’s eyebrows knitted together as Minerva took a quill and a piece of papyrus. She dipped her quill into the pot of ink on her desk, then began to write –– hastily so. She did not ask. She would be told soon, she assumed.

She watched when her former professor dropped her gray quill and folded the piece of papyrus, then walked to the unlit hearth and nearly automatically reached for the pot on the mantelpiece in which Hermione knew she kept Floo Powder. She caught sight of the silver and glittery powder before the hearth erupted in green, non-burning flames.

Minerva faced her when the flames and message disappeared. “I’ll let him tell you himself.”


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Hermione couldn't inquire any further right then, given the headmaster himself appeared within green flames seemingly seconds after Minerva's scribbled message. However, she knew it must have been several minutes. When the small Ravenclaw wizard within the fireplace spun no longer, he stepped from it and waved his wand to make the soot on his midnight blue robes disappear.

"Filius. I am grateful that you have managed to make time so soon to join us."

Filius smiled quite fleetingly in response and nodded at Minerva then Hermione. "Minerva," he greeted. "Mrs. Weasley –– err, Miss Granger. I apologize."

"No worries. That's alright," Hermione Granger reassured him. She smiled at the mistake, just slightly. It was a mistake that she had heard many make already; it wouldn't be a first at all. She didn't get very upset about it anymore –– not anymore now. "Good afternoon, Professor Flitwick," she greeted her former Charms professor kindly.

"Please, Filius," Minerva said and made a gesture to indicate he should take a seat.

The Headmaster smiled again, then made his way to where both Gryffindors were seated. Easily levitating himself after several years of practice of magically coping with his lack in height, he sat on the red fluffy couch beside Minerva and looked at her curiously. It was obvious enough that what Minerva had written to him hadn't said much.

"I may have a solution for you both," Minerva stated, looking from Filius to Hermione. She addressed her when she spoke the next time. "Hogwarts' Professor of Transfiguration, Professor Hodgins, decided to retire. The Headmaster hasn't had a lot of luck so far in his tries to replace him, even though we're nearing the end of the summer holidays, and steadily. From what I've understood, the Ministry hasn't offered you a great deal of job satisfaction or solitude of late. I thought that you might like to listen to what the Headmaster has to offer to you as a professor here. I believe it fits with your aspirations."

It began to dawn on both Hermione and Filius why Minerva had arranged an unexpected meeting, but neither of them seemed to be able to speak. Hermione was most shocked undoubtedly. She opened her mouth to speak several times, to deny everything that might have lead Minerva to believe she could possibly be suitable for the job no matter how often she had thought of being a teacher as a little girl and even teenager and had considered the positive feelings she would have at sharing a little knowledge with still-developing younger witches or wizards. "I…" she began.

"We've been so terribly unlucky," Filius Flitwick squeaked as he conjured a particularly ugly flowery cup from thin air. The tiny Headmaster raised it to his lips and took a sip before he spoke again. "History only ever does repeat itself… Minerva continued to teach for most of her time as a Headmistress and then only got to hire Professor Hodgins in 2013, when we had no hope of finding someone any longer. We all knew he wouldn't stay for long, though. We all knew the solution was temporary at the very best. Since Transfiguration is so dangerous to practice and especially teach, it is very hard to get suitable and reliable candidates for the job. I have no doubt of your capabilities as a professor should you like to try it, though. It would be rather wonderful."

"I'm overwhelmed… This is a bit unexpected, as I didn't come to Hogwarts with this intention," she said, and with that she eyed the elder woman pointedly but just not quite long enough for anyone to notice. Minerva didn't miss this. Green eyes connected with hazel and challenged them. What did she have to lose now? Minerva's eyes spoke great volumes when she let it show, Hermione figured.

"You would have a great deal of freedom of course," Filius added. He appeared very excited at the thought of at last being able to fill the position and at the thought of Hermione being the one to do so. "You do not have to remain at Hogwarts after classes if you rather don't. Most professors do not consider 200 Galleons a week as little, but I'll happily consider the options with you if it dissatisfies you and if that should be the cause of any doubt for you to accept this offer."

"I'm… Uhh…" Hermione uttered. "It does seem like a really great opportunity. I would like a little time to really consider everything and decide, though."


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"I will be happy to see you join our staff, should you decide to take the position, Hermione.” Filius squeezed then patted the Gryffindor’s hand one last time before he threw the glittery silver powder he had just gathered in his other hand in the unlit fireplace, called ‘Headmaster’s Office’ as his destination, then stepped into the green flames, whirled for a few seconds in them and disappeared.

Hermione continued to watch until the flames died away at last, then sighed and averted her gaze, leaning back heavily against the spotless wooden mantelpiece. Green eyes met hers directly. “You feel quite similarly, I reckon?” Hermione voiced. She herself didn’t seem as convinced at all, though.

“I do,” Minerva admitted.

Hermione’s eyes began to fill with tears once more at the indecision in her mind and heart. She closed her eyes, and Minerva’s words echoed inside her head. Whereas the timing was all but ideal for this child, and whereas a termination seemed a valid alternative, Hermione had felt that, prior to seeing Minerva even, it wasn’t a decision that she thought she could live with. She realized she had already made her decision before she had spoken with Minerva; her former professor had only aided her in seeing it.

She didn’t know how to raise a baby at this stage in life and in her current circumstances, though. Rose was nearly thirteen already, and Hugo would go to Hogwarts that September, too. She hadn’t had small children in a while and was a bit nervous at the thought, much like when she had first become a mother. What if she didn’t know exactly how to do it anymore? Hermione Granger sighed once more and dropped her heavy head in her hands, then lowered them after a rather long moment. She felt –– and was certain that she looked –– exhausted. Upon hearing the bell towers chime, Hermione was slightly surprised at the length of her stay at Hogwarts –– a fact which didn’t escape Minerva's notice, despite the brevity with which it had been discernible from her behavior. She broke the silence, “I am afraid that I really should be going.” With that, she pushed herself away from the mantelpiece she had been leaning against. “I’m so not up for my mother’s questions, though,” she continued. “She always just seems to know when something is the matter, and she’s been suspicious lately already. I’m not ready to talk about it with her, tonight.”

“You could stay here at Hogwarts, of course,” Minerva suggested. She wasn’t hopeful that Hermione would accept at all, and the way in which she formulated her offer and the tone of her voice when she did reflected this. However, it was a possibility that she felt she needed to inform Hermione of just in case.

“I couldn’t, I’m afraid,” Hermione spoke. “I do have to work tomorrow, and it was hard enough to leave earlier already today. I don’t wish to know how many owls from the Ministry undoubtedly await my return when I get home…”

“You could Apparate from here to go to the Ministry come morn, Hermione. If not, I am certain that regardless of how many owls await you and what nonsense questions the letters they carry do or don’t include, you won’t go to bed until you’ve read and answered everything, and we both know you deserve the bit of rest that you could get tonight. Play a game of chess with me over a cup of tea instead.”

“Well, what can I say?” It would be nice to for once let the owls be, and Minerva was right: she could use the rest. She had truly forgotten just how exhausted you could feel the first few weeks when you expected. Also, she swore she had seen a little flicker of hope in Minerva’s eyes when she suggested for Hermione to stay. She didn’t doubt that Minerva must get lonely often no longer being Hogwarts’ esteemed Headmistress. “Alright,” she agreed after a long moment of thought and nodded her consent. “I should let my mum know that I won’t sleep at home tonight, though. No matter how old I get, she still gets very worried.”

“Of course,” Minerva said, for it sounded acceptable. She was certain that it would do Hermione good not to have to worry about work tonight anymore, or about the questions her mother might ask. It would do her good as well to have Hermione for company for the night, she realized and admitted to herself.


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Once Hermione had called and told her mother not to worry or wait up for her since she couldn’t come home due to a report that had to be finished, both Minerva and she had sat down on opposite couches to play the suggested chess game, the board stretched between them on the low table, Minerva having offered Hermione the white chess pieces while she took the charcoal colored ones. Several turns had been played already, but only a handful of words had been spoken between them. Pieces moved forward in quiescence, threatened and sometimes took other-colored ones. As they did, both women were mulling over their own thoughts for the time being.    

Minerva’s thoughts were upon how Hermione Granger was a perfect fit for the job of Transfiguration professor. She had denied a great many candidates herself in her time when she didn’t feel the Hogwarts pupils would be in capable hands. She would never need worry about that at all with Hermione as the Transfiguration teacher. Minerva McGonagall felt a rather vague yet discernible sort of hope as well at the thought of her filling the position and possibly residing at Hogwarts. If so, the former Hogwarts headmistress would surely get to see a lot more of Hermione’s children, for instance when there were no classes with Christmas and Easter and in the summer when it was Hermione’s turn to take them. If Minerva had heard all correctly, this was Ronald’s week, and the next would be Hermione’s again –– and it would be September first that Sunday, already. Hermione wouldn’t let the Headmaster wait for long, she knew, given the fact that September first was, indeed, coming quite steadily closer. Hermione was a very considerate witch, and she wouldn’t let Filius wait once she knew what her decision was going to be, and she had a good feeling that Hermione would like to prepare herself for her new job from September on in the setting itself, the castle.

Hermione, then, mulled over the reason why she had come to Hogwarts, to Minerva, for advice to begin with, over Filius’ job offer… and how, if she did decide to become a teacher at Hogwarts, it might just change her life a great deal for the better. It had the possibility to do so, for sure. Initially, it had been a question of whether or not to have the child that was developing in her womb right now, but now, it had gotten a whole lot more intricate. Hermione had to admit that a job at Hogwarts sounded more than nice. She would be very close to Rose and Hugo there, and she would be less pressured than she was at the Ministry of Magic currently. She liked the idea of more freedom at work a great deal, and it came in more ways than one as well. If she did take the job, Hermione would have a place of her own at Hogwarts castle, too, which would allow her to leave the parental house in West Sussex. She loved her mother and father a great deal, but she needed her privacy as well. Maybe that wasn’t so weird since she would be forty in September, though.

Mr. and Mrs. Granger looked after the children when she needed to work late, much like Molly when the children were with Ron, and both Rose and Hugo loved being with their Papaw and Mamaw, but she really missed her children. She couldn’t actually remember the last time that she herself had been able to tuck them in on a week day. That triggered a question. “Minerva,” she spoke. “What when I have the children?”

Minerva quietly lowered her tumbler of pumpkin juice, too, eyeing Hermione over the rim of her very thin, squared eyeglasses, visibly confused. She quirked her left eyebrow momentarily. “I am not entirely sure I see what it is you’re worried about.”

“Well, if I take up the job –– and then I stress ‘if’ –– where would Rose and Hugo stay in the holidays? If I’m not mistaken, most of the teachers stay at Hogwarts then.”

Minerva nodded. She understood her former pupil’s question now. “That’s correct,” she answered. “I suppose your children would stay here at Hogwarts with you if you, too, wish to stay. These rooms would be yours, should you decide to accept the Headmaster’s offer.”

Hermione looked genuinely shocked. “I can’t just kick you from your rooms! Where would you stay if I moved here?” she wondered as she remembered her Nana and how she hadn’t lived longer than half a year after moving into a rest home. Hermione suspected that the fact that her grandpa had died a little while before might have a great deal to do with her death, though. After all, they had been a couple since their early twenties and never known anything, or anyone, else. She then wondered to herself if Minerva McGonagall had ever known any love, and it struck her how very little she actually knew about the woman opposite her.

“I am sure that we’ll find a solution that both of us can be happy with. I’m not sure if you know how large these rooms in fact are and how much they can be enlarged still with a bit of magic.”

“Professor…” Hermione began, lost for words. “I can’t just invade your privacy that way. Plus, what when I have the children? It’ll be very busy. They can be very exhausting.”

“Aren’t all children, though?” Minerva asked. She smiled very weakly. “While I never had children myself, I’ve lived at Hogwarts for most of my adult life, and I was a teacher, for more than half a century. I honestly wouldn’t a bit of… liveliness in my old days.”

When Hermione saw what she thought was a flicker of hope in those teal eyes, she was only more inclined to take the job at Hogwarts.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

After two games of chess, Minerva having won the first and Hermione the second, the Gryffindor, witches had, unsurprisingly, delved into the subject of Transfiguration and its latest findings. Certain renewing articles that had been published in _Transfiguration Today_ –– which both women had been subscribed to for many years –– over the course of the past few months had been mentioned and discussed, and all too soon was it that they had entirely forgotten about the time, as we do so often when in good company, until the bell towers had chimed eleven times and they had looked at each other, quite surprised at how much time had indeed managed to fly by, so easily.

Minerva had pointed her wand at their tumblers and the jug of pumpkin juice to banish them to the kitchen below before, very slowly and rather uneasily, getting up, muttering something unintelligible while holding her hand up to keep Hermione at a distance when she offered to help. Hermione thought it could have been "I'm fine. I don't need help".

At eighty-four, Minerva McGonagall wasn't as agile as she had been, especially after having taken four Stunners so close to her heart in Hermione's fifth year… and the wars she had been in, especially the Battle of Hogwarts in 1998. Still, she was very set on independence.

She then had wandlessly and nonverbally summoned her cane from beside the door, leaving Hermione to suspect she mainly used it on the rare occasions she actually left her quarters, before turning back to the younger witch who stood beside her, leaning in to leave a small but warm kiss on her cheek, before saying good night.

Hermione had felt the urge to lean in more and hug her former professor, as a way to show her gratitude for the support the elder Gryffindor had given her when Hermione had needed it most and had felt that there was no one else to go to with her worries, when she felt words couldn't capture it enough in that moment. She hadn't wanted to invade the privacy of her former professor, though, by initiating an embrace that most likely wouldn't have been warranted. Thus, accepting Minerva's kiss on the cheek, she had returned the gesture and leaned in herself to touch a kiss to Minerva's cheek.

Minerva had pointed her wand at the red couch Hermione had previously occupied and had transfigured it in a nice and comfortable-looking double bed, prior to informing her of where she would be if her former charge needed anything at all. After ensuring Hermione was fine and had all she needed, Minerva McGonagall had wished her good night once more and disappeared through the door to the hallways to go to her bedroom and sleep.

Hermione had sat on the edge of the bed for a little while, pondering about how lonely Minerva must be, about the teaching position that she had been offered, about everything, before transfiguring her robes in a comfortable and roomy nightdress and conjuring an alarm clock, setting it at six before leaving at upon the table beside the bed. A clock wasn't usually necessary for her to wake up, though, given the fact she usually did a couple of minutes to six anyway, her body accustomed to her working schedule. Hermione Granger was a light sleeper in general, too –– what with two children, of which her first had been a crybaby on top of everything? She didn't know what she would do if the one she was carrying was going to be a crybaby as well. She hadn't laid in bed any longer than a few minutes before already falling asleep, giving in to the exhaustion she felt, her brain only continuing to mull over everything further in her subconscious.

She hadn't been asleep for long when mocha colored eyes opened to the still-dark rooms of Minerva McGonagall at Hogwarts. It had taken a moment for Hermione to realize where she was again at first, the sleep, although the brevity of it to put it mildly, making her feel as if a bunch of Nargles were whizzing about inside her head.

She sighed as she sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes with the palm of her hand while pushing herself upright with the other. She had to go to the bathroom, very urgently. Even though she had barely had any side-effects while her pregnancies lasted aside from the occasional morning sickness with Rose and Hugo, she had had to run to the bathroom much more often then, both during the day and at night as well, and this pregnancy did not seem to be different, so far.

Taking a small step to the left, Hermione accidentally stubbed her toe against what she knew to be one of the many book closets in Minerva's sitting room. "Ouch!" she hissed in the silence of the night, thoughtful not to be too loud and possibly wake her former professor, who was undoubtedly soundly asleep behind one of the doors past the hallway door. Summoning her wand wandlessly and nonverbally with a long-mastered spell, Hermione lit the tip of her wand and concluded that a dark wooden book closet filled with seemingly very old very thick books, indeed, was the reason her pinky toe would be black and blue come morn. She truly wished she was a bit better at Healing and wondered if maybe evening classes were an option. It would always be very useful with two children who loved to climb in trees and such. It would have helped them a great deal in the past already, too, like when little Rose had fallen from a climbing structure at the park at the age of four, for instance. She still had a scar of her stitches on her left inner knee. If she did decide to go follow evening classes, though, she would see her children less than she did already. Guilt washed over her at the thought. What was she thinking giving birth to another child at forty when the two she had didn't get the attention they deserved from her to begin with? Again, Hermione thought about Minerva's suggestion and how perfect it seemed for the situation at hand, even if it meant a great deal of changes to get there at first. Hermione was willing to do what it took, though.

She sighed while making her way through the sitting room and to the door Minerva had indicated earlier for if Hermione needed anything, hoping the bathroom would be hidden somewhere beyond it as well. She stopped when she reached the door. It felt like she was invading Minerva's privacy, but she really did have to go to the bathroom urgently… That was why she had woken to begin with after all. She bit her lip as she laid her hand upon the handle and waited a few seconds before finally shaking her head, willing the conflicts tumbling in it away and pushing down on the handle, slipping through the small opening and into unknown territory, in search of the bathroom to relieve her bladder.


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

As Hermione slipped through the opening quietly, enlightening what lay beyond with her wand, the Gryffindor found herself in a small hallway. Two identical doors rose up before her, and on the right she saw another, as she cast the light of her wand upon it. She bit down on her bottom lip, no idea which door would be most likely to lead to the bathroom. After a moment of quiet pondering, she chose the door furthest right and lightly padded over to it, aware that Minerva was soundly asleep behind one of these doors and not wanting to wake her.

Hermione inhaled deeply, letting her hand fall on the doorknob and turning it as quietly as possible, revealing a rather large bathroom. The floor was made of small and delicate beige tiles, the walls painted a light blue. She was glad that she had found the right door right away. Mocha eyes widened as she set foot into the room hesitantly and she saw it fully. She had never seen such a luxurious bathroom… in her entire life. A shiny white bathtub easily suitable for two stood against the wall ahead and was decorated by candles. Hermione wondered if Minerva ever actually used those. The toilet, shiny white as well, stood against the right wall and right beside it, pushed into the corner, a large dark wooden bathroom closet with several drawers in which she suspected lay towels and other, typical, bathroom necessities. There were big rectangular sinks that fit with the rest of the bathroom. Hermione’s eyebrow quirked as she wondered why the older woman needed two sinks and if maybe Minerva had had lovers here when she was younger. Again, she realized how little she knew about this woman.

A glance upon the oval mirror above the sinks was enough for Hermione to believe it to be antique. She thought about her less than expensive and rather tiny mirror at the house she and Ron had shared. She shook her head once more. Whereas keen on luxury of many kinds, Ron had always had a tendency to use their money on those things that weren’t quite necessary, like a television that was larger than Hermione had ever seen, while he didn’t care much for things that Hermione thought necessary, like a mirror for the bathroom, for instance.

As Hermione left the bathroom and made to make her way back to the double bed in Minerva’s sitting room, she could hear a soft sound beyond the first door she passed on the way back. The Gryffindor’s forehead creased; she waited. She heard the sound again. Curiosity overtaking, she reached for the doorknob. Her heart beat in her throat. She really shouldn’t get in Minerva’s personal space any more than she had already… but her curiosity took the better of her, and she gently turned the doorknob, thoughtfully lowering her lit wand and peeking into the room she soon discovered was indeed Minerva’s bedroom. Her eyes fell upon the queen-sized bed on the right, the fetal-position figure of Minerva McGonagall in it with the covers covering the woman barely.

She lay with her back to the door, Hermione saw. Minerva’s graying hair was unbound and spread over the pillow beside her. She lay mostly on one side, as if she waited for a lover to return to her bed. Mocha eyes momentarily strayed, fell upon the window on the wall ahead and the illuminating moon that was visible anyway through the thin, soft curtain. It undoubtedly offered the other Gryffindor woman a breath-taking view upon the grounds. Her musing were interrupted, then, when she heard the sound that had made her peek in to begin with once more. Hermione cast her gaze aside just in time to witness Minerva’s hand jerk to her hip and fall back down beside her. She was in a lot of pain, it seemed.

Hermione wished that there was anything at all that she could do to help the older woman, but she knew that she couldn’t and that Minerva wouldn’t let her even if she could. When she couldn’t bear to hear the sounds of pain and watch Minerva’s hand jerk to her hip every time anymore, she stepped from the room and closed the door behind her.

She then resumed her way back to her bed to get a bit more sleep, given the fact that she had to get up at six for work. As she stood by the doorway that lead back to the sitting room, however, she cast a quick glance over her shoulder to the last door and debated for a moment within herself. She knew that she had intruded on Minerva’s personal space enough already, but her curiosity was, once again, stronger. She bit down on her lower lip and turned back to face the door she hadn’t opened yet. She would just glance into it quickly and leave… After all, if these were to be Hermione’s rooms, too, as Minerva had suggested…

She reached for the doorknob slowly. The light of her wand shone inside the room as the door creaked open and revealed a bedroom that was very like Minerva’s, with touches of the same colors and rather similar furniture as well. One glance upon the bed told her that it was not in use, though. It looked as if no one had ever had a night of sleep in it before. Hermione frowned. Why had Minerva transfigured the couch for her to sleep more comfortable when there was actually a spare bedroom right there? Maybe this one was reserved for someone, she thought. She wasn’t very mistaken.

She felt very much like an intruder at that point, though, and pulled the door closed, making her way back to the sitting room and the transfigured bed.

As she did so, she failed to notice how another door materialized on the left of the hallway…


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Minerva McGonagall, former Headmistress of Hogwarts, sighed with relief as, at last, she managed to turn off the alarm that had begun to sound through her rooms several minutes prior. She did not know how, by Merlin, Hermione had managed to sleep through it when she herself had been woken in the next room. When the noise had continued to go on after several seconds and Minerva had lost all hope for Hermione or anyone else to turn off the alarm, she, herself, had risen and summoned her cane and wand before going into the sitting room to see where exactly the hellish sound was coming from. She had located the clock very soon and had walked over to it –– quite uneasily, since she was stiff in the mornings after having laid for hours in nearly the same position –– first doing an effort to make it stop on her own, without magic, before eventually still using a Silencing Charm.

She had been a tad surprised herself upon seeing the time indicated by Hermione’s conjured clock. Everyone who knew anything about Minerva McGonagall knew that she was a very early riser. Without alarm, she had woken at five-thirty every single day since many decades already, given the fact that she had never needed much sleep –– not even when she had been a teenager once upon a time either. Today had been the very first day in over half a century that Minerva McGonagall had stayed in bed past five-thirty.

As she quietly set the noise-maker down on the table once again, Minerva looked over at the witch in the bed, sprawled and, seemingly, still peacefully asleep even after the alarm had resounded beside her so very loudly. She must have been absolutely exhausted. Minerva really hated having to wake her, but she couldn’t let her continue to sleep and arrive at work late after convincing her to stay the night prior, especially.

Sighing, Minerva McGonagall reached over to take a hold of Hermione’s foot dangling from the edge of the bed, no longer covered by the sheet, and shook it gently. “Hermione? Your alarm’s gone off.” When the younger witch made no indication of having heard Minerva’s words through her sleepy haze, she shook a bit harder and said a tad louder, “Hermione. Your alarm’s gone off; it is time to wake up.”

At last, the younger Gryffindor witch began to stir a bit, eyelids fluttering then opening. She looked slightly confused at first, undoubtedly at the unfamiliar surroundings in which she had woken. “Good…” she began when her own words got interrupted by a yawn, her hand going to her mouth to try and hide it as best she could, “morning,” she finished before slowly moving to sit up in bed.

A small smile involuntarily lifted the corners of Minerva McGonagall’s mouth. Hermione’s eyes were still filled with sleep at the outer corners, she noted, as mocha eyes adjusted to the dim light that still spilled in even through the curtains and a hand reached up to rub her eyes as she barely managed to stifle a second yawn. “Good morning, Hermione. I’m sorry to wake you,” she apologized, “but I thought you would like to know that your alarm’s gone off.”

Hermione frowned at that, and her gaze flashed to the dial of the clock only to find herself utterly shocked –– ten past six. “It didn’t wake me? Or, didn’t it go off?” she wondered.

“Oh, it did,” Minerva assured with a little smile on her lips.

Hermione’s eyes widened; realization hit. “I’m so sorry!”

“Please, don’t be,” Minerva waved off with a hand gesture that fit her words. “I am awake at five-thirty every day.” With this, she failed to mention how today had been an exception to that rule. “How about… we get dressed first and foremost and then we ask the House-Elves for something to eat? How does that sound?”

“That sounds like a plan.”

“All right,” Minerva responded. “Then I will go and get dressed, and I will ask a House-Elf to send something up for two when I am back.”

Before Hermione had a chance to voice her thanks once more, Minerva McGonagall had turned away already and had managed a few steps in the direction of the door to the hallway. Minerva was leaning rather heavily on her cane, Hermione saw, and a bout of genuine worry creased her otherwise-smooth forehead. She wondered if the older witch was in any pain at all right now, and, if so, if it was in the degree she had witnessed last night when Minerva was asleep. As Minerva made her way back to her bedroom to get dressed, her long graying hair spilled down her back. Hermione wondered why she rarely left her hair loose. It hadn’t thinned like with most women of her age, and it was still shiny and smooth. Hermione didn’t see any reason at all for her to still pin every wisp of her hair up in her customary bun. After all, she didn’t teach anymore. Habit?

Sighing, she slipped from the bed and summoned her wand into her hand to first re-transfigure Minerva’s red couch then change her attired into something a bit more work-appropriate: a dark blue lady suit, as she usually wore to go to the Ministry of Magic.

She felt her bushy hair, made a face. She would really need to fix that prior to leaving for work. There was no way that she could leave with what was undoubtedly a resemblance of a bird’s nest. Her hair had always had a tendency to work itself in knots when she was asleep, even when she was still a little girl. Again, the Gryffindor’s thoughts trailed off to the spare bedroom she had discovered the night prior. She was very hard-pressed to ask Minerva about it. Then, however, she would have to admit to having invaded Minerva’s privacy…


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

When the door fell shut after her and the former Headmistress glanced up, she didn’t fail to notice how there was an… addition to the hallway that had most definitely not been there when she went to bed the night prior. Whether it had been there earlier already or not, she wasn’t quite certain –– after all, she hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention to the architecture of her hallway when she had passed through to her own sitting room to turn off the horrible noise of Hermione’s alarm. Two doors seemed to have just appeared overnight or something.

While the Castle contained a lot of magic that emanated at all times from the foundations –– which for instance caused the stairs to move on their own accord, or so it would seem –– Hogwarts didn’t perform _this_ sort of magic on a daily basis… at all. Then again, it had always been kind to Minerva even when she was younger, and however unexpected the materialization of those two identical wooden doors, she had an idea as to what she would find when she slowly reached for the doorknob of the door that was nearest. She didn’t get disappointed when she was met with a large master bedroom very similar to her own. A weak smile came upon thin lips, and she didn’t bother to close the door before she moved on to the second one.

The door felt her nearness, or so it seemed, because it opened before Minerva on its own to reveal what appeared to be a combination of an office and a living room. A wall was lined with a bookcase that was partially filled and contained a variety of books in both binding and volume. She noticed a few board games, too –– both Muggle and magical. Right in the middle of the room stood a set of comfortable-looking red couches like her own, surrounding a low but apparently sturdy table.

Hogwarts had done its best in many ways, Minerva thought when she discovered there were another two rooms to be accessed from the office and sitting room and saw what they contained. She had had a look at only one of them, but that had been enough already. It had contained a small bed with soft pink covers and a night table beside it, a wardrobe that matched the very dark wood of the bed and the night table and a tall unused bookcase pushed against the opposite wall. It held a cornered desk set so that the natural light that came from the only window always fell upon it. Minerva knew that the other room wouldn’t contain anything else than a similar set of furniture, maybe arranged differently and possibly in boyish colors instead –– a color that Hugo would like. Minerva McGonagall wondered if Hermione, who was very perceptive, had noticed the additions herself, too.

Hermione had been one of the very few guests Minerva McGonagall had received over the past few years. She felt a bout of what was close to guilt for having had her stay. She must have looked lonely. In truth, she often felt that way. Often enough, she had doubted her decision to retire despite her age. Busy schedules had dominated her life for the most part of it, but now that that was gone, she hardly knew what to do with so very much time on her hands. She had read and reread books, but you could read only so much until you reached a point where you wanted to do something else than that, too.

She stepped from the new rooms and walked to her own. The Castle –– however magical, however mysterious –– never ever would have done anything like creating rooms for her and her children to live in if it hadn’t somehow felt Hermione had a strong inclination to accept the position. Whereas Hermione still seemed to doubt, Hogwarts did not and showed that it was more than happy to house both her and her children. The Castle’s decision had already been made, and Minerva only hoped Hermione’s would follow very soon.

As she pushed her door open, she made her way to her wardrobe. Minerva McGonagall sighed as she ran through her attires. She had worn only black and other dark colors for the past few years. She had kept the clothes she used to wear when she still taught, too, though. She ran her fingers over the shoulder of a mid-green robe. She couldn’t wear those any longer; they made her look sickly pale. Despite the fact that one would have guessed black and other dark colors did that, with Minerva they did much less than the robes she used to wear.

With a sigh, she slid her thinnest black robes off of the hanger, laying them on the bed. When she looked up, she caught her reflection in the mirror against the inside of her wardrobe. She eyed herself for a moment before she clasped her hands over her face and sat down on the edge of the bed. While Minerva had never thought herself to be very beautiful, she knew many men had disagreed a great deal when she had been younger, but now… Since she retired, her old age had only begun to show more and more in her appearance lately.

The day she had decided to retire had been the day she had signed the end of her days, she felt, and she had regretted it so much. She hadn’t truly lived since that last day of her being the Headmistress of Hogwarts; her body really showed it as well. The lines in her face had only come to the surface more, especially the ones by her eyes. Her teal green eyes also didn’t show the same intensity they always had any longer. She wondered if she could have possibly looked older than she did now, and that for a witch.


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

As Minerva McGonagall walked into her sitting room, she looked every bit of the venerable Headmistress that she had been until she had chosen to retire from her post. The fact that she had her gray hair up in its customary bun, her robes not one bit less professional than when she had lead the school, definitely helped Minerva to feel more like the younger woman she had been then.

When she came into the living room, Hermione was seated on the re-transfigured red couch, dressed in a navy lady suit which Minerva assumed she usually wore to go to the Ministry. Hermione’s hair was twirled in a loose knot on the back of her neck. When the younger witch looked up at Minerva, there was a crease visible between her eyebrows. Minerva McGonagall had a vague idea as to why Hermione would look at her that way. “I won’t fall down just like that without my cane, you know,” she said. Her toned held the middle between sarcasm and soft mirth. She halted by the couch. “I’ll call for something to eat then, no?” she suggested.

Hermione nodded. “I have about half an hour before I’d like to Apparate. I usually arrive just a tad early to answer owls and internal notes, and I have a feeling that I might need another half an hour to do so today after I had the day off yesterday. I bet that the owls are piled up at my office window.”

Minerva nodded. “All right,” she said as she slid past the couch on which Hermione sat and moved to sit down on the other one opposite her. Minerva didn’t limp anymore, Hermione noted. She wondered if it had to do with the fact that it was only morning or if she had taken a Pain-Relief Potion. She didn’t remember seeing a medicine cabinet when she had been in the bathroom, and she wondered if maybe it was hidden elsewhere. She wondered if the older with had ever had the need to hide things from little children’s curious eyes and hands. Maybe Minerva had more direct experience with children, too, aside from having been a teacher at Hogwarts.

Hugo, even though eleven already, was a very curious child, and if she were to live there, in Minerva’s personal rooms –– that was if she accepted the job –– and the children were there in holidays, maybe it was better that things like that were hidden. Hermione’s musings were quite suddenly interrupted by a House-Elf, the same she had seen the day prior. She hadn’t heard Minerva call for it.

The House-Elf bowed to Professor McGonagall first, doing a half-turn to Hermione and bowing once more before turning to Minerva again. “Woulds Mistress be needing anything?”

“Something to eat would be very nice, please?” Minerva requested.

At that, the Elf bowed deep before it disappeared with a loud crack. Within thirty seconds after the Elf had disappeared, a tray with a big variety of ‘morning food’ for two appeared on the low table.

“Tuck in,” Minerva said with a small smile as she, herself, reached for a small piece of baguette and jam as she saw Hermione reach for a one of the crescents they had been offered and began to nibble on it. She didn’t appear at all interested in what she was eating nor anything else that lay on the tray. Minerva wondered if maybe it was morning sickness that caused this. “What’s on your mind, Hermione?” she asked gently.

“Oh,” Hermione mouthed. She looked at the older witch rather startled. “I’m fine. I’m just… I’ve pondered about Filius’ and your suggestion to come and teach at Hogwarts. My mind and heart both push me to see the advantages of it all, but I don’t know if I would be a good teacher.”

The older witch smiled lightly. “I was worried that I wouldn’t be, either, at first. However, Albus said that as long as I loved teaching and loved sharing my wisdom with ‘young souls’ that I would be a great teacher.”

“You were.”

“So will you be,” Minerva spoke. “I’m sure that Mr. Potter wasn’t the only one who taught the others when you all had Dumbledore’s Army going. You were always incredibly talented, especially at Transfiguration.”

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I believe maybe I should discuss it with Ron first, too, and with Rose and Hugo.”

“I see why you would like to talk it over with your children first, but I am afraid that I don’t see why you would with Ronald. I thought that you two weren’t involved into each other’s lives all that much anymore since you separated, or did I…?”

“No, you’re right,” Hermione said. She sighed. “Oh, I don’t know what to do. I’m not ready to tell the children about the baby yet, I feel, but since that’s what got me here, and since that is a major reason why I would accept, it is like lying to them. I always tell them to be honest with me. What kind of parent would I be to expect complete honesty from them, with everything, when Mummy’s not doing the same, in return?”

Minerva McGonagall smiled weakly in sympathy. The conversation fell quiet, then.

The silence was interrupted only when the bell towers chimed six-thirty and Hermione looked up. “Oh, I have to leave,” she whispered, then rose. “Otherwise, I’ll never manage to answer my owls before my meeting at eight.”

“Of course.”

As Hermione made to leave, she ensured Minerva that she would be back as soon as she had news about whether or not she would take the position and promised she wouldn’t let them wait longer than necessary. With a kiss on the cheek and words of thanks to her former professor for her support, Hermione said goodbye before she left the older witch’s rooms.

Hermione Granger had a decision to make.


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

When Hermione got to the Ministry, it was still quiet; most of her colleagues wouldn’t arrive for another hour or so. She arrived before the mass of others on most days, if only to answer owls and notes from the evening or night before. With Hermione often being one of the last people who left for the day, she often wondered where everyone managed to find time to send owls to her, often about things that weren’t of importance at all.

“Good morning, Hermione!”

Hermione cringed inwardly when she looked up and saw a skinny, balding wizard by the name of Alfred Langley wave. He was in his forties and worked for the Magical Maintenance department. Multiple times a week he would come by her office and beg her for her assistance. It often made her doubt the competences of the people who worked for the Magical Maintenance department in general. The week prior alone, Alfred had come to ask what to do about someone’s office that had been turned upside down for no reason at all and about the door to another’s office that refused to let anyone in unless they sang for half an hour to please it. It might not have bothered Hermione so much if he was the only one who asked for her help all the time. Unfortunately, though, that was not the case. Many people ran to her for her help, and often Hermione felt like she was too busy with everyone else’s issues to work on her own things. That was only one of the reasons why she had to work late most days, in addition to getting to the Ministry early. She knew that she had to learn how to say ‘no’ more often.

“Morning, Alfred,” she greeted, a bit surprised when the older wizard didn’t mention any issue he needed her help with.

When she neared the Department for the Regulation and the Control of Magical Creatures, she heard the owl already. The loud screeches were absolutely unbearable when she arrived at her office. With a heavy heart and a deep sigh, Hermione pushed open the door. At once, a herd of Ministry notes began and attacked her from all sides. She only barely managed to wave her wand at them and still them in mid-air before she had them flutter into a pile on her desk.

Then she noted the owls that hovered by her window. She couldn’t even see the enchanted sky anymore. Despite hidden beneath the earth, most offices had an enchanted window through which light filtered in and for owls to deliver any non-Ministry mail to Ministry employees. With another sigh, Hermione gently opened the enchanted window and watched as a bunch of owls all but fell into her office. Carefully, she removed the letters from the talons of the exhausted post owls, politely offering them dried jerky from a can she had on her desk before they flew off once again –– Merlin know how long they had been waiting for her! She informed each owl not to wait, and slowly, the noise of screeching owls who just wanted to have their letter delivered diminished with each departing owl until she was at last alone, with two piles of post on her desk that she had to answer first, before she could do basically anything else, like her own job. Hermione no longer did believe this was part of it, and that feeling was only strengthened when she sat down and began to open all the letters.

She wrote her responses for most of the morning, until, at one-fifteen, Alfred Langley burst into her office, soaking wet. “You have to help me!” he screeched. “Susannah’s had an angry thunder and rain cloud follow her since she set foot into the office, and no spell anyone’s tried will shield her from it, let alone make the cloud disappear!” He looked as if he could burst in tears.

Hermione didn’t say anything. She just got up and made a small gesture to Alfred to say she would follow him. She had only just exited her office when a fat wizard with moustache and beard began to run to her from the end of the hallway, bellowing her name in an effort to stop her from going anywhere. “Mrs. Weasley!”

She didn’t have the heart to correct him or anyone anymore. She shut her eyes and took a breath; Hermione heard Alfred Langley’s hurried voice, Benjamin Carlisle’s heavy footfalls and pants. “Stop!” she screamed, then opened her eyes. Everyone halted. She couldn’t say if the ever-repetitive nature of her days over the course of the past few years had finally pushed her to the limit or whether the hormones that coursed through her body had anything at all to do with that. “I’m not Miss Fix-It! This is not my job!” She had had enough of it. She waved her wand and effortlessly caught her purse as it soared from her open office before she passed through the hallways, absolutely everyone giving her wide berth.

When Hermione reached Kingsley’s office, she was already a lot calmer. However, she hadn’t changed her mind and knew she wouldn’t anymore either no matter what happened. This was a decision that she knew she wouldn’t regret. She announced her presence by a knock on Kingsley’s door. She waited for his low baritone to say it was all right to enter.

Kingsley’s dark eyes shot up from his owl post to look at her with surprise as she entered the room and took the chair right opposite him and stated without preamble, “I resign.”

“Hermione…”

She held up her hand. “Please, don’t try to change my mind. My decision’s been made. I’ve made the changes that I told myself I would. However, I would really like to have the kind of job now that allows me to be with the children more, my family... and this isn’t it. I’m sorry.”

Kingsley Shacklebolt merely nodded, rather astounded.

Hermione’s eyes met Kingsley’s then, and a shadow of a smile was visible on her lips when she got up again. “It has been a real pleasure, Minister,” she said, then extended her hand.

“The pleasure’s been mine, Hermione.”

The Minister rose and rounded to Hermione’s side of the desk before he took her hand and shook it. “Goodbye,” Hermione whispered before she leaned in and turned the handshake in a warm embrace. She did enjoy her job, at first. She wasn’t the same girl as back then anymore, though. Hermione Granger had become a mother, for instance.

As Hermione walked back to the main entry, it felt as if a heavy burden had somehow been lifted off of her shoulders. She felt lighter than she had in years. She should go to Hogwarts to inform Minerva and the Headmaster of the decision she had made that morning. She had promised not to have them wait very long.

 _Hogwarts…_ The thought of the fabled castle brought a smile to her lips. She knew her destination, with determination and deliberation… and with a crack, Hermione left the Ministry behind.


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Minerva McGonagall waved her wand at the tray that had held her and Hermione’s first meal of the day to send it back to the kitchens. She sighed with relief as she got up and did not feel any pain as she did. She was glad that she had taken a Pain-Relief Potion that morning, after a rather horrible night pain-wise.

The Gryffindor witch wondered what it would be like to have two children live with her and Hermione, here. She was certain that it would make her days less dull and monotone. However, the thought, it also did remind Minerva of her own limitations. After all, she wasn’t Hermione’s age anymore and had not been in forty-four years either. Would Hermione’s children be understanding of them? Would they compare her to their grandparents or great-grandparents if they still had those?

If Hermione did decide to take the position at Hogwarts and share rooms with her, however, there were some personal items of hers that absolutely needed to be sorted before her guests arrived. Minerva’s thoughts drifted off to Hermione and the reluctance that she had shown that morning to go to the Ministry of Magic.

Minerva McGonagall knew for a fact at least some of those more personal items were kept inside her book closets. While Hermione’s children were not all that young anymore, it didn’t mean they couldn’t get curious when they were bored. After all, teenagers were naturally curious.

She sighed as she eyed the many closets that were full of books and other miscellanea. Granted, she had already wanted to sort it for years. She had never really managed to find enough time or desire to do so, though. She would get to her sitting room first now. There were at least a few picture albums from times long ago, with pictures of people whom most alive wouldn’t even know. She had kept the albums for many decades already without ever once looking into them. Very often, she told herself she would, but it never did happen for one reason or another.

Teal green eyes inadvertently fell upon the high bookcase in the corner. Calmly, she made her way to it and pulled at the top drawer, in which she knew her journals and other lay. At the top of the old closer drawer lay two voluminous photo albums. These were the ones her mother and father had kept since the beginning of their marriage, and it had pictures of them and their children, Minerva and their two sons. Carefully, she reached for the top one. She quietly blew the dust off the worn leather cover that had gathered on it over the years of neglect. She slowly flipped the cover and saw a picture of her parents on their wedding day. The picture didn’t move, but it was obvious that Mr. and Mrs. McGonagall were happy in this. The next black-and-white picture didn’t move either. It showed Minerva’s mother on a porch swing, her hands upon her swollen belly. This had been taken when she had been close to the end of her pregnancy, with Minerva. Minerva swallowed as she remembered the great many times that Isobel had showed her this picture and told her how very happy she had been when she discovered she was having a baby despite their young age. She closed the album; she wouldn’t get anything at all done if she kept looking at the pictures, and she wasn’t certain that was a good idea right now. In fact, she felt that it wasn’t at all. Minerva’s memories weren’t all happy ones.

She reached for the other one and sent both of them to the low table with just a small wave of her wand. Another made Minerva’s little pile of journals from her days as a pupil at Hogwarts until many years later follow suit.

Minerva had thought that her drawer had already been cleared entirely. However, then she noticed a shimmer of gold, right in the back. The witch’s brow furloughed. As she slid a hand far into the drawer, she wondered what by Merlin had managed to wedge itself there in the back of her drawer. She had no idea at all what it might be, until the tips of her long fingers touched a long cylinder glass and felt cool metal. She curled her hand about the object and pulled.

She managed to pull it a bit closer, but then the weathered chain became taunt and kept her from pulling the Time-Turner from the drawer entirely. Without thought, Minerva pulled harder, since maybe her old Time-Turner would come loose like that. She felt it begin to give, at last, and with one final thug the chain unexpectedly broke free.

It happened in a matter of only seconds.

Minerva held the little hourglass so tightly that as the chain finally broke free, the pressure upon the very thin glass shifted and that made it burst apart in innumerable tiny pieces. She felt the shards of glass bite into her skin as the sands slid through her fingers from a puddle in the palm of the witch’s hand. She hissed at the intense heat that burned her palm. Within seconds, her fingers fell open and the broken Time-Turner slipped from her hand as a powerful invisible force blew her backwards. She tried to stave her fall as her hands desperately grasped for something to hold onto, but alas. Minerva McGonagall fell back, her head connecting with something solid.

Minerva’s albums and diaries all fell heedlessly downwards. Minerva’s body was struck by them; long-forgotten pictures lay scattered all across the floor.

Her burnt left hand unknowingly hit the still-rolling remains of Time-Turner as her body stilled, which caused the bottom of the old now-broken mechanism to redirect and roll further, between the many glass shards.

The Time-Turner rocked once, twice… five times before it came to a halt.


	16. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

When the pieces of the Time-Turner came to a halt, it didn’t take long for irreversible changes to begin to manifest. Minerva McGonagall remained unconscious, unaware.

She must have been unconscious for a little while when a knock upon the door came at a little before two. Since House-Elves only appeared when called, and most Hogwarts professors arrived only at the very end of summer –– some even September first –– and Filius was in London for most of the day to get the last few things arranged for the beginning of a new Hogwarts school year, no one really noticed Minerva’s inactivity.

Hermione, however, did notice. She felt her worry rise even higher when she knocked once more and failed to hear any sound or response from inside still. Hermione’s head filled with all kinds of images in which Minerva was hurt. What if Minerva had managed to get hurt since she had left the castle?

Anxiously, she felt the door handle and discovered that the door hadn’t been re-locked. “Minerva?” she called once more. “I’m coming in, alright?”

When she heard no answer or any other sound again, she pushed the door open and let her eyes slowly move over the living room. It looked the same as that morning before she had left, with the exception of the tray on the table now no longer being there. She walked further into the retired Headmistress’ personal rooms; the door fell shut. Something wasn’t quite right, although Hermione couldn’t immediately put her finger on what that was. She squinted as she inspected the room a bit more carefully, and that’s when she noticed the books that had seemingly been thrown upon the floor carelessly. Hermione got down to her knees to gather the books strewn across the floor and saw as she did an unmoving picture, of a baby with dark hair and rounded cheeks, biting on a toy of sorts while looking up with big, curious eyes. The infant looked familiar, somehow.

With care, she held the photo in her other hand as she flipped the cover of the old ‘book’ on top that, in fact, was a photo album as she had guessed upon seeing the picture and then considering the thin band of the leather-bound books. When she saw the couple on the very first page, she couldn’t deny they looked like a very happy one at that. Hermione briefly wondered if it could be Minerva in her younger years, given the woman looked a great deal like the woman that taught her Transfiguration once upon a time. Maybe the picture she held in her hand was Minerva herself or a younger sister she didn’t know about. With care, she slid the picture between the cover of the album and the first page then glanced about the room to see if there were any more pictures that had come free from the pages, the rough handling having assisted the old glue to detach.

The books Hermione had gathered already thudded down on the floor again as she noticed the unconscious body of a middle-aged woman between and under the rest of the books. Without thought, Hermione crawled over. She let her eyes slide over the turned face and took in the woman’s familiar appearance. She looked a lot like the woman in the album, give or take some years in age maybe. Gently laying her hand on the woman’s cheek, she turned her face to her and saw blood seep from a wound upon her temple as she leaned over her.

The touch appeared to have caused the woman about the same age as her to return to the land of the conscious, eyelids quivering as she struggled a lot to open them. Hermione could tell that the woman looked indeed a lot like Minerva. Was she a family member, maybe, like a sister or niece, who came to visit with memories from the past, the albums? She couldn’t say what had gone on. If she was, though, where was Minerva herself? Did she know what had happened?

The woman upon the floor turned her head at last and opened teal green blurry eyes. With effort, she focused her gaze upon the blurry but familiar face of Hermione Granger. “…‘Mione?”

When the woman opened green colored eyes, Hermione was shocked to see how much like Minerva’s they were. The former Transfiguration professor’s green eyes had always had the status of ‘trademark’. Who was this woman in Minerva’s rooms? Where was Minerva McGonagall? When the woman tried to move from her position on the carpeted floor, Hermione gently stilled her movements and laid a hand against her upper body to do so. “Please remain,” she said. “You appear to have hit your head when you fell.”

The woman upon the floor of whom Hermione didn’t know the name or relation to Minerva groaned. She seemed to walk on the fine line in-between consciousness and darkness much like a cord dancer at a circus walking from the one end to the other one. _Where was the net here to catch her if she fell, though?_ “Fell?” she asked.

“I don’t know what happened exactly…” Hermione replied.

With determination, the woman’s right hand slid to the carpet, as she laid her other one upon Hermione’s and pushed her own body up into a sitting position.

Seeing this and figuring that she couldn’t stop her, she helped the woman move, so that she could lean against the tall closet.

She winced once again, and her hand shot to her injured temple instinctively. As she pulled it back and looked at it, the witch saw a smear of dark blood.

“I’m sorry,” Hermione began, “but who are you? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you before. Are you family of hers maybe? Do you have a clue as to where Minerva is?”

The other woman frowned. “I don’t have any idea at all what you’re talking about; I’m still me. I wonder if you’ve not hit your head, too,” she said, and teal colored eyes had never been so focused in the last few minutes as then. Teal met with very confused light mocha. The two witches eyed each other as if they had never seen one another before, and deep concern laced both of their features.

_Those eyes._

_That voice._

As the truth hit her, Hermione fell back and lifted her hand up to her mouth. “Oh, Merlin…” she whispered as she felt her pocket for her wand and conjured a mirror and handed it to the woman who said that she was Minerva McGonagall, so that she could see herself why it was very hard for Hermione to believe. As she handed the mirror to the woman and sat back, she kept her eyes on her the whole time. _What had happened? This couldn’t be true._

As the woman equally silently accepted Hermione’s, conjured mirror and looked at her own reflection to see why Hermione didn’t recognize her, a gasp came from her. She covered her mouth. She understood at once. This reflection hadn’t been hers in nearly fifty years.


	17. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Hermione’s eyes never did leave the other woman. After several moments without a word said between both Gryffindor witches, Hermione’s mouth opened, but Minerva held up a hand to silence her when she heard her intake of air in order to speak. “I can’t remember what happened after you left…”

A myriad of images crossed through Minerva’s mind, flashed by so fast that she could barely hold onto them as her intellect worked at top speed. At last, she managed to hold onto one particular image of a small hourglass and a chain. Suddenly, she recalled the feeling of something hot burning into her palm, and when she lifted her right hand up and saw the burns on the inside of her long fingers and her palm. Ugly blisters had appeared already.

When Hermione saw Minerva’s burnt hand, she gasped. “Oh, Merlin…”

“I do remember now,” Minerva stated as she laid her non-injured hand upon Hermione’s knee, to draw Hermione’s attention. She held her gaze for just a moment, then cast her own aside. When she did so, her eyes fell upon something that glinted from nearby: tiny pieces of glass and sand. This confirmed her suspicions about what exactly had happened. She drew her gaze back to her visitor. “Hermione,” she began, “I had an… accident, with my Time-Turner.”

With her hand on Hermione’s leg, she pushed off of the floor to sit on her knees by what still did remain of her Time-Turner. She thought it was best left untouched. A Time-Turner, by principle, allowed time-travel to the past, while your being stayed the same. Somehow, though, time didn’t appear to have changed while she herself very much had. Hermione hadn’t been affected, so how long had she then been unconscious for? When had Hermione arrived? First of all, she needed the answers to at least a couple of questions prior to taking action –– that was if she could take any at all.  

“Minerva…” Hermione voiced. She was very confused. She watched on as, with effort, Minerva McGonagall held onto the bookcase and pushed hard off of the floor until she stood. She followed suit at once and reached for the other woman she had a very hard time understanding was indeed her former mentor when she wavered. “You’re injured,” the younger Gryffindor spoke with concern.

“I’m well aware,” Minerva admitted as she dared let go of Hermione at last, when she was certain that she wouldn’t need her help anymore to say on her feet. “However, right now, I am afraid that that is the last of my worries, if I’m quite honest.”

“That’s understandable…” she stated, then frowned when she saw Minerva’s intentions and decided to follow on her heels. What was she going to look for in the hallway?

To Minerva, thought, this was an easy way to confirm whether or not her surroundings had returned into the time, too. When she pulled the door open, she noticed there were four more. She pulled the first door open and saw that the room looked exactly as it had earlier that morning. Minerva’s heart hammered in her throat as she pushed the next open only to find it exactly the same, too.

Eyes wide, Hermione watched. That door had not been there, that morning, and she was certain about that as well. Where had that fourth door suddenly come from?

Minerva seemed to sense her questions. “Hogwarts Castle has always had the ability to adapt its structure when needed and wanted, from its own volition. It doesn’t happen often, and in truth it rarely does happen at all. Therefore, very few people know. The few who do know, believe that it is due to old magic of Godric Gryffindor’s, the Founder. If you recall the sword and how it comes to those who are worthy, reveals itself to the true hearted when in great need, maybe it isn’t so strange to believe.” When Hermione nodded in response, she continued, “These rooms weren’t there last night,” she said as she indicated the two additions. “However, this morning, there they were. I’ll hazard a guess that as a result of the conversation we had, regarding you teaching here, Hogwarts chose to adapt to the possible changes ahead, should you accept the offer.”

Hermione Granger couldn’t say a word and just eyed the elder woman astounded. She didn’t believe this was the time to tell her about her decision, given the fact that in the light of the recent events, it was pushed to the back of her mind and most likely to Minerva’s as well. Hermione’s head reeled. “What does this all mean?”

“I would say it means the surroundings haven’t been affected,” she said. She turned back to Hermione, and the brunette had no words for just how penetrating Minerva’s eyes were in that moment. People had said that Dumbledore’s were, but Minerva’s were even more so. “When did you get back to Hogwarts?” she asked.

“About half an hour ago, maybe?” Hermione estimated. “I left the Ministry before two.”

Minerva nodded. She pinched the bridge of her nose in hopes to delay or diminish the headache she felt coming on, quite rapidly. Her eyes fell shut as she took that the information in, processing everything. The accident couldn’t have happened all too long after Hermione had left for the Ministry, but that meant that she must have been unconscious for at least a few hours then… She bit her lip as she thought, then made her way back to the living room, ignoring the pain she felt in her right ankle. Hermione followed her as she did with still-wide eyes, still dumbfounded.

“Minerva, what…?”

“Elly?”

Within seconds, a small House-Elf with large ears appeared. The way the little Elf’s eyes bulged when she saw Minerva said enough; she noticed the change, too, which wasn’t hard to miss since it was a drastic one, as well. “Mistress?” she shrieked. “You’s becomes younger!”

Minerva was certain that, had the House-Elf not worked for the Hogwarts kitchens since before she had become a professor, she wouldn’t have recognized her at all. It also did give Minerva the advantage to be able to tell that Elly’s appearance hadn’t changed. It was always hard to determine how old a House-Elf was, but Minerva remembered very well how she looked when she was the age she appeared to be at the moment. She breathed a small sigh of relief to herself. “Elly, I had an accident with my Time-Turner. Am I right in assuming that I was the only one who was in the castle after Hermione left, aside from all the House-Elves?”

“Indeeds!” the Elf confirmed with a nod that made her large ears flap.

“Am I right in assuming that nothing at all unusual happened to you or the other Elves, and that I am the only one who was affected by this, whatever this is?”  

“Elly’s believes that that’s rights.”

Minerva McGonagall tried to smile as with a small nod, she dismissed the Elf called Elly to further address the issue she knew wouldn’t be dismissed so easily.


	18. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

“What do we do?” Hermione whispered as Elly disappeared, still shocked. All had been normal when she left Hogwarts that morning. Minerva McGonagall had still looked her eighty-odd magical years. However, upon her return hours later, Minerva McGonagall had disappeared and had been replaced with a woman several decades younger, not a single line in her face or a gray hair in her ebony locks, who claimed to be her. The way in which she spoke and talked didn’t leave any doubt at all that this was, indeed, Minerva, though. Hermione Granger couldn’t deny that the woman was her former professor, as hard as it was to believe.

She had never seen magic like this before, but she knew that the chances of reversing it would be very slim anyway. If, indeed, it couldn’t be reversed, the Ministry of Magic had to be informed of what had happened.

“First off, we have to determine how old I, or at least my appearance, is right now,” Minerva responded. She gently laid her hand on Hermione’s one shoulder, and her eyes met with the younger Gryffindor’s. Minerva winced and pulled her hand back as, temporarily, she forgot the burns upon her hands and squeezed. She suppressed the urge to look for a balm that would make the pain disappear. Wandlessly, she cast a Cooling Charm to appease at least some discomfort. Right now, these burns weren’t her biggest concerns. It would do for now. “How old do you reckon I look?” she asked her former pupil.

Hermione let her eyes slide over Minerva’s face, then down to take her appearance in fully. “I would say you look rather my age now, but… Is there any way that allows to determine your physical age, objectively?” she wondered. She didn’t have the answer.

Minerva McGonagall bit her lip as she thought. She looked at least several decades younger than she had that morning after her Time-Turner had burst in her hand earlier that day, but she couldn’t say what exactly it had set into motion. She shifted her weight to her other leg when she couldn’t deny how her ankle pounded with pain any longer, and that’s when she realized there was possibly another option. The pain she felt in her right ankle right now was not one that she hadn’t felt before. She had felt the exact same pain decades prior after a fall she would always remember, if only for how much her hatred for Peeves had increased as a result… and she had never had much patience if it concerned the annoying poltergeist.

“Maybe,” Minerva said, “there is.” She kept her eyes on Hermione as she lifted a hand to her collarbone and slid it down a bit and back and forth. Either way, though, she did not feel any scar tissue there anymore, anywhere, from the Stunners that had hit her two decades prior, and the scars had been raised above her skin so much that they could be felt through several layers of clothes. “In 1967, the first Nimbus was released and immediately got a lot of attention from professional Quidditch teams. It didn’t take very long for it to emerge among the pupils at Hogwarts as well. I remember that we had a staff meeting the August of 1969 about whether or not to permit them since most Hogwarts pupils couldn’t afford them and it would be too unfair for them to compete against what was mostly a mix of Comets and Cleansweeps, and the difference back then was rather significant.”

Hermione couldn’t help but smile at Minerva’s love for Quidditch, and she remembered her competitive spirit when the Gryffindors had played back in the days when she herself was still a pupil.

“While descending the stairs, one afternoon, I slipped and seriously injured my right ankle. It was hard to walk for weeks after, and it was swollen and bruised in excess of a month.”

When Minerva sat and calmly crossed one leg over the other and began to unlace her right boot, Hermione was only confused for a moment. If Minerva had been cast back in her body from fifty years ago, but not the surroundings, then her body would show the scars she had acquired only up to then, and she had noticed Minerva having trouble walking earlier.

Carefully, Minerva undid her boot and peeled off her red and green tartan sock to reveal an angry bruised ankle. Green eyes connected with mocha colored ones.

The pieces fell together for Hermione Granger. “So does this mean your body’s been sent back to that summer of 1969?” she asked, and her voice reverberated off of the walls of Minerva’s quarters.

“So it would seem,” Minerva agreed, albeit carefully.

“I don’t get it,” Hermione admitted. “Technically, this shouldn’t be possible. Is there a way to reverse this, maybe by going back in time with another Time-Turner?” She stopped as she considered her own words. More dabbling in time in this case might not be the best solution. “What if we repaired this one?” she suggested.

Minerva’s head shook as she let her right leg slide down to rest beside the other again. She winced at the pain she felt in her ankle when she did so.

“It looks very painful,” Hermione sympathized, as she sat down opposite Minerva McGonagall.

“There’s no need to worry,” she reassured. “It is merely strained, so it is nothing that a bit of ice and Healing Cream won’t cure. I now know I shouldn’t procrastinate and hope that it gets better on its own, which is a mistake that I did make in ’69.” Green eyes flickered to the scattered sand and glass, then back to Hermione. “The Time-Turner can’t be repaired, I fear. It would be futile to believe for even one moment that I could collect every granual of sand that it held, even magically. Another Time-Turner…” _Time_ was way more intricate than most would know or guess. “If we return in time with the intent to stop this from happening, then we would have to change time to do so. It wouldn’t be safe at all. Would I be able to return to this time? It isn’t an option.”

Hermione nodded. She thought about the talk that she and Minerva McGonagall had had in her third year about the dangers of altering time. She had travelled back in time often enough to know for herself, too. To this day she didn’t know how she, Harry and Ron had managed to get away with what they did in their third year. “Do you believe your accident hasn’t changed the past then?” she asked, using Minerva’s chosen description. _An accident_.

“I’m not sure, Hermione,” Minerva admitted. She sighed. “So far, that’s not how it looks like. As I see it, a fifty year change that I can’t reverse was made when the Time-Turner burst in my hand. I don’t know what exactly happened or how. I don’t have any answers. What I do know is that I haven’t returned in time with it, but that time has returned in me.”


	19. Chapter 18

Chapter 19

When Hermione’s footsteps weren’t audible anymore –– when the Bell Towers chimed, she had told them that she really had to go pick up her children from their playdate and had excused herself to do so –– the Headmaster turned to Minerva, concern and worry in the subtle crease of his brow. “Minerva, how are you feeling?” he asked.

“I’m… all right, I guess,” the Gryffindor responded with some hesitation. Then she saw his eyes upon her left temple. “I’ll be all right, Filius,” she said.

The Headmaster’s brow quirked as he slid his blue eyes down to her injured ankle. “Is it as painful as then?” he asked when he saw how bruised and swollen it was and connected her appearance with the injury he remembered her getting shortly after he began to teach at Hogwarts. Peeves had had the genius idea to throw a balloon full of cold water right before her feet when she was on the staircase. Minerva slipped, rather painfully. Filius was convinced that he had never seen Peeves more scared than that day, after Minerva’s anger eruption. He and his colleagues had all quietly reminded themselves not to anger her and get her infamous Scottish ire over them the way Peeves had.

Minerva was a very private person, and that was no secret. Most people wouldn’t dare ask her any question that touched upon the subject of Minerva’s health in any way. Filius wouldn’t have dared in the beginning of their friendship either. However, the two had known each other for so long already that he knew he could ask her such a question and get a direct and honest answer from her.

“Indeed…” Minerva admitted. “It hurts just as much, and I hope that I do not have to see Peeves today. At least it let me determine just how far I… my body… has returned in time.”

“Half a century is…” Filius began. He couldn’t find the right word to describe how very difficult it made things, but Minerva understood nonetheless. “What happened earlier exactly? Surely, we should be able to reverse this?” he asked.

“The Time-Turner burst in my hand. If there’s a way, I don’t know it,” Minerva stated. “We both know how dangerous and utterly intricate time is. Magic allows for us to bend it, but when it bends the way it has today… I reckon I should be glad that I haven’t aged half a century instead. I’m not so sure that I would have ever dared to look at my reflection again.”

Filius couldn’t help but smile slightly at her very dry humor. “What will you do?” he asked.

Minerva’s teal eyes became guarded when she met his gaze. “I can’t answer that, Filius,” she said. “I doubt that there’s a way to reverse it, but I will have to try. I have no desire to go and inform the Ministry before I have tried absolutely everything. If I can’t reverse it, I reckon I will have to do so in the end, but, until then, this has to stay quiet. After that… Well. There are so many things that I regret never having done when I was younger, and I assume that my body will adapt to that of a thirty-something woman and that I will begin to feel more energetic than I’ve been lately, but I just… don’t know. I’ve taught most of my life, had a day away from Hogwarts rarely. I’m not sure I know how else to live anymore. I liked to teach.”

“What do you regret most?” Filius wondered, and as he asked, he knew this was quite an… invasive question. He didn’t know if Minerva would answer at all.

“What I regret most is that I didn’t have a family and children,” Minerva whispered. “If I can’t reverse this, though, would I really be able to begin anew, correct that? I don’t look like I’m eighty-four, but I still have eighty-four years of life experience.”

Calmly, Filius nodded at that. He understood her thoughts. No matter how old she looked right then, she had the experiences and the wisdom of someone so much older –– exactly half a century older. Only her body had returned in time this morning and not she herself. If anything, Minerva McGonagall was remarkably calm considering the situation. He wasn’t sure anyone else would have really managed.

“Come October, do I celebrate my eighty-fourth or my thirty-fourth again?” She shook her head, then buried it in her hands for a moment and forced herself to look back up at her colleague, hands falling back into her lap. She sighed. “I shouldn’t jump the gun. It will only drive me utterly mad,” she stated. “Filius, to what do I owe your visit anyway?” She wanted, needed, to discuss basically anything but the accident.

This time, it is Filius’ turn to sigh deeply, as he remembered the reason why he had come to Minerva’s rooms. He understood her need to absorb what had happened and try to come to terms with it and its repercussions on her own. Merlin knew Rita Skeeter would have a field day with the story when she heard of it, for instance.

“I met O’Connelly this morning in Diagon Alley…” Filius began. “I fear that we’ll have to look for a new Charms professor, too. O’Connelly reminded me that he only accepted the job to help us, and that he hadn’t intended to teach for so long already. I reckon I shouldn’t be surprised. He told me he will stay on until we’ve got someone to replace him, or until the end of the year.”

Minerva sighed, then shook her head. “O’Connelly’s timing is absolutely unfortunate. We’ll have a few months to look for someone else, at least.” She sat back against the couch. “We already knew when he took the job that it was only a stop gap. It wouldn’t be the first.”


	20. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

As soon as the sound of Hermione's footsteps was no longer audible, Filius turned to Minerva, expression filled with worry. "Minerva, how are you feeling?" he asked, voice laden with concern.

"I'm feeling... all right," she said with a degree of hesitation, while noticing his eyes trace the dressing along her temple. "I'll be fine, Filius. This is nothing to worry about." They both looked at her painfully swollen and bruised foot at about the same time, then looked up as they both remembered the occasion in the past where that had happened. Filius had just been appointed as Charms professor and Head of Ravenclaw House the year prior.

"Is it as painful as before?" he asked. Few people would ask her, but he, being one of her oldest and most trustworthy friends knew that if he asked, he would most likely get a direct and honest answer. She was a very private person, and especially in the beginning of their friendship had there oft been times when Minerva's answers had not been particularly elaborate. In later years with the more they had gotten to know about one another and the strengthening of their trust, Minerva would share more with him until this point when he knew that in most cases she would answer truthfully and in more than one-word-replies if he asked something – even if it touched upon the far too delicate subject of her health.

"Yes..." Minerva admitted. "Very much so. The only advantage the injury has is that it allowed me to determine how far I... my body... returned in the time."

Filius eyed her with more worry. "Half a century..." He said, watching Minerva nod in response at his half-hearted guess. "Minerva, is there no way of reversing this?"

Minerva's head shook. "Filius, you know as well as I do that such accidents like this are irreversible. Time is a very complex and dangerous thing, and while magic allows us to bend it, when it has been bent due to an accident like this... I think I should just be glad that my body hasn't aged half a century... I don't know if I'd ever really have dared to look in the mirror again."

Filius couldn't help but smile faintly at her dry humor. "What will you do?" he asked.

The teal of her eyes morphed, becoming guarded as she met his gaze. "I don't know, Filius. It seems like I'm given the chance to live my life anew again... as if... I've been given a second chance to do the things I regretted not doing over the years. I very much enjoyed teaching, though... and right now, I have no idea how I'll be able to fill my days. I assume that my body will soon adapt to that of a forty-plus-year-old and render me more energetic than I have been of late. However, as you well know, while I have taught the majority of my life, I have rarely spent a day away from Hogwarts, too."

"What would you do then?" Filius asked carefully, not quite sure if he could ask this question even being who he was to her.

"I don't know, Filius. What I regretted most in my life is never having had a family... but still. The whole British Wizarding world knows me, and I could never truly start anew. I know that. Few people have known me in the days that I looked like this and associate Minerva McGonagall with the old woman with gray hair and glasses. My body may have altered, but my mind is still the same, and it doesn't change the fact that right at this point I'm ninety-four."

Filius nodded in understanding. It was completely true. He had a hard time accepting that this was not a memory himself. She had the experience and intelligence of ninety-four years. It was not as if she was truly back in time – only her body someway was. He thought she remained quite calm under the circumstances, even though the confusion she brought over. How would anyone be in that very same position, though?

"Come October, what birthday will I have to celebrate?" Minerva mused aloud. "My forty-fourth for a second time? My ninety-fourth?" She shook her head, sighing deeply. For a moment she hid her face in her hand, then let it slide down to fall in her lap with her injured one. "Anyway. To what did I owe your visit in the first place?" she asked, pushing her own problem aside for the moment and _wanting_ to discuss something, anything, else than her quagmire of a problem.

Filius moved on to why he had originally stopped by to see her, knowing that she needed time to absorb and come to terms with what happened – along with all the repercussions. Goodness knew the Prophet would have a field day with the story once they learned of it, not counting reactions from her friends, the staff… "I met O'Connelly in Diagon Alley this morning. I fear we may have to start searching for a Charms professor as well. He reminded me of the fact that back in the days he only took up the job as a favor, and it was never his intention to keep doing it for the rest of his days. He's willing to stay until we have found a replacement or at last until the end of the year, but no longer."

"The timing is unfortunate," Minerva sighed, "but we knew when he took the position it was only a stop gap," she said, leaning back against the couch.

* * *

I certainly owe _asouldreams_ for all her effort.


	21. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

"Mummy!"

Before Hermione had had the chance to fully enter, little Hugo had already appeared in the hallway with his Nintendo, jumping up and down, mentioning that he had at last managed to pass the level he had stranded at a few days ago and beginning a very fast-paced update on how very difficult the next one was as well. When she hugged Hugo hello, as was their custom, she saw her thirteen-year-old daughter in the doorway with a book in her hands. She, too, hugged her mother hello. The children must have heard her voice as she stepped into the small hallway and greeted her ex with but a polite smile and a "Good evening."

It rarely happened that she came by when the children were with their father. She could tell he was curious as to why she had chosen to do so right now. She ran her fingers briefly through her son's ginger hair before he pulled back and redirected all attention back to his game. As she did so, she realized she felt very unwell. She knew this conversation needed to be had either way, though.

"Ahem," Ron sounded, "It is ten, so..."

Hermione nodded. "Of course," she said. "It is bedtime." She and Ron had agreed that ten o'clock was a good time for both to go to bed in the holidays ── any later than that resulted in a very hard time getting up before lunch for both of them and in Hugo, sometimes Rose as well, falling asleep on the couch. On top of that, Hermione was afraid that letting them stay up too long now would just lead to more trouble when school started once more and they had to be up much earlier to go to their lessons after their breakfasts.

"Goodnight, my sweethearts," Hermione whispered; a warm and genuine smile passed over the mother's tired face. She had hoped that the children would have been asleep already, but she was glad that she had been able to wish them a good night as well.

"Good night, Mum. Good night, Dad," it sounded in response before the children moved to go upstairs to change and go to bed as they were told to do.

"Hugo..."

With but a sigh of defeat that he had, again, been caught, Hugo placed his Nintendo console in his father's open hand before he trudged off after Rose to go to bed as well. Otherwise, he would play all night.

The parents waited for both of their children to have disappeared before Ron inclined his head in the direction of the doorway. She followed him as he entered the living room and sat down as well when he did as he made a rather weird hand gesture.

She didn't know how to say this, exactly... How do you tell your ex that you've switched jobs from one day to the next, and, particularly, that the children won't only have to go through all changes that come with that, but that they'll be getting a sister or brother on top of that, too? How do you tell him you're having his third child, when you have already been divorced for two years?

"Well..." Ron started after several moments of silence. "What's going on? I doubt that you came over to just tell them good night."

Hermione nodded. "You're right," she said. She bit down on her lower lip. The Gryffindor witch knew it wouldn't be easier next week, next month... She took in a gulp of air, which she let go very slowly. Then she decided to tell him the 'easy news' first. "I have resigned from the Ministry, earlier today."

Ron's eyes bulged when the words fell from her mouth and he took in what she had just said. "So, the rumor is actually true? Some people mentioned you had quit. I didn't know whether or not to believe it. You had left the office already, though, and Kingsley wasn't there either, as usual in the afternoon. I can't believe you left the Ministry."

Hermione sighed. "Well," she began. "I do not know what has been rumored, but yeah, I did. I haven't had a challenge at the Ministry for years now, and that is what I need to stay happy in a job. That's why..." She paused. She sighed. "That's why I am going to join the staff at Hogwarts next month... I'll be teaching Transfiguration from now on. I just have to go discuss some last details, tomorrow morning."

Ron's eyes bulged more as he ran a hand through his hair, obviously speechless. His mouth opened more than once soundlessly before he managed to say, "Whoa. You didn't stall at all."

"Well, it was a tad unexpected for me as well," Hermione admitted.

Several moments passed by; both Ron and Hermione remained quiet. Hermione looked down at her hands as she, in that moment, was reminded of how the last few years of her marriage to him had been. She remembered the silence and the many fights. Ron's voice pulled her from her thoughts, "I wish you had mentioned you were looking into a new job, though. Rose and Hugo are my children, too. When they are involved, whether we're divorced or not, it is my business, and that means that I should have a say."

"Ron..." Hermione started, but then she stopped herself. She couldn't reason with him, anyway. That was part of why she had divorced him. She knew it was useless to try to tell him that she was an individual aside from her role of mother and ex-wife, too. She sighed. There was no use to delaying the inevitable either. It was with heavy heart that she broke the news. There would never be a good time. "Ron, I'm with child," she whispered, then looked back up to watch as Ron's control snapped.

"You're _what_?!" he exclaimed. Then he jumped up, ears turning scarlet fast. When he was livid, that always happened. Then he began to pace. That was usually what he did before he began to scream. "You... have already shared the bed with someone else! I can't believe you!" he screamed when he came to a halt. His entire face matched his ears now. "We've only been divorced for two years, and you are already having another man's child! I never ever knew you were dating people again!"

"I'm not!" Hermione shrieked. "I don't screw all that I can get, unlike you! _Would you keep it down?_ " She hissed when she saw him open his mouth once more to undoubtedly go off on her for saying what they both knew was nothing less than the truth.

With effort, Ron managed to shut himself up.

"Ron, it is yours."

When he heard this, Ron slowly sank down on the couch again and stared ahead into thin air. "You mean... Whoa." Then he turned back to his ex-wife and blinked as if he had never seen her before that moment. Silence reigned for several seconds between them. Then, however... he smiled. "I am going to be a dad again!"

Hermione had expected that this would happen. She knew that she had to be very clear with him right now. "You are," she agreed. "You'll be involved. You'll get the chance to be this child's father as much as Rose's and Hugo's... but we're not going to get back together. This doesn't change all of the issues we had before."

"What..."

Hermione shook her head gently. "I won't do it. I'm sorry." She paused. As she did so, she looked at him to ensure that he was listening. "I'm not in love anymore, if I ever was." She ignored the look of hurt in his eyes and forced herself to go on. She didn't like it one bit, though. "I've had quite a lot of time to order my thoughts in the two years we've been separated, Ron. I do wonder if we didn't just get together when we did because it was expected of us."

"I'm sure that it was!" Ron said. "That's because we belong together!"

"No, Ron," Hermione stated, "We don't belong together. I do not regret that we had a son and daughter together, nor do I regret this unborn child, no matter how unexpected the news." As she said it, she knew she meant it. "We put in what we could and gave us a shot at a happy ending together, and I don't regret it. However, we aren't the same people we were then. We've both changed. We would just end up in the same vicious little circle we've been in for so long. We would go back to fighting every damn day. Deep down, you know we've changed too much for it not to happen again.

"I don't know how you can see this work," he challenged her.

Hermione sighed. She didn't remember when she had felt so damn exhausted last. "It will just have to. I am sure that we'll somehow manage," she said, "After all, we've managed to create him or her as well... I have had a check-up yesterday. Everything's fine. My new job will be less stressful, so hopefully, whatever happened when I was with Hugo won't happen again now. Plus, there's a Healer close by if there's anything at all."

"'You'll be involved', you said!"

The Gryffindor witch was on the very verge of tears. She felt exhausted and angry and upset and hurt. "I wasn't entirely certain. We both know how unlikely it really is to find yourself with child after one attempt, however unintended."

When her ex opened his mouth once more to continue to argue, she held her hand up and got to her feet. "This is where I give up," she said. "For years, we haven't really managed to have a reasonable conversation. I don't know why I thought it could happen right now."

With that, she turned to go.

Ron, however, got to his feet, too, and took a hold of one of her wrists, rather roughly. "You can't just announce I'm going to be a dad again and leave when I really deserve answers!" he thundered, forgetting about Rose and Hugo upstairs... or not caring. "You can't!"

Hermione pulled back her arm and looked him straight in the eye. "Actually, Ron," she whispered, "I can. If you could just have a reasonable conversation, I wouldn't be leaving. However, you're seemingly incapable ── still."

"I'm not!"

"You are," Hermione stated. Angrily, the brunette wiped the corner of one eye. Hermione really did hate to show her tears, especially him ── he wasn't worth it. "I would appreciate it if you let it rest, for now," she very nearly begged. "I'd really like to wait to tell the rest of the family, let alone the world, until I have passed my first three months. Also, I hope you bear your daughter's happiness in mind, on Saturday, when we see each other next at her birthday party ── if you can't do it for me, please do it for your daughter."


	22. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Minerva looked into the mirror. As she did so, she tilted her head a bit to the side to look at her injured temple better. The area surrounding the large gash had bruised and had a blue and purple hue now. It didn't hurt much, though, unless she touched the wounded area directly, despite the fact that it all looked very painful.

Of course, if she wanted to do so, she could easily hide it with a Glamour Charm. Minerva McGonagall stayed nearly always in her rooms, though, and it was only very seldom that she left them, so she didn't bother. Especially now, the witch had no intention to do just that.

The ex-Headmistress released a long sigh as she lowered the cotton pad that she had just disinfected the injury on her left temple with and, with a softly-murmured, nearly inaudible, wandless spell, banished it to the bin that stood in the corner. She lifted her hand and inspected the bandage that she had just applied with a bit of magical help, too. The burns hurt a lot less already. In fact, her ankle hurt worst of all right that moment ── much more than the injuries of her very unfortunate fall with the Time-Turner.

Somehow, she felt very much stronger magically now.

She couldn't help her eyes from travelling right back to the mirror; her thirty-four-year-old self stared back at her. She hadn't adjusted yet. She still had a hard time believing it, processing it ── despite the fact she lived in a world of magic. Somehow, though, after decades in that world, despite the existence of accidental, uncontrolled magic, you believe you have seen most, if not all, of it. Nonetheless, there she was in the 'now', in her body of decades ago. This reflection hadn't stared back at her in a while, and it would be a long time still, until Minerva McGonagall had gotten used to how she looked, she knew. She knew that there was only a small chance that whatever had happened when the Time-Turner burst in her hand could be reversed, but she also knew she had to try. She rationally knew she had to try to find all information that she could about this specific kind of accidental magic and any options for reverse... if only to not have to go through the whole mess with the Ministry that was sure to ensue. She told herself not to worry about that until later.

Minerva McGonagall looked over her appearance very closely. What was most notable, of course, was that the braid that laid over the witch's right shoulder didn't show a single gray hair at all. She had only begun to visibly turn gray in her early fifties, which was late. Since her youth the Gryffindor witch had taken to pulling her long hair in a sideways braid before bed, to stop it from tangling as much. It was an arduous task she had not been up to doing very often anymore in later years, if at all. Somehow, using magic to do it hadn't really appealed to her. The long braid resting over one shoulder was silky ebony now.

The lines that had been visible along the outer corners of her green eyes, as well as the ones upon her upper lip, were hard to find. At first, these lines hadn't at all been pronounced, but they had deepened every year, become more visible.

Carefully, she ran the fingertips of her non-injured hand along her forehead, her cheek, feeling the same smooth texture of years ago. Had age really done all of that? Additionally, while Minerva McGonagall had always had a pale complexion in later years, her cheeks wore a soft pink tint again that once had resided upon her features every day. As a result, she looked considerably more healthy and youthful in a subtle way. Minerva's lips, too, were reddish now rather than pale and chapped. It wasn't that she hadn't taken care of her older self, but that had been a lot harder to do for her in the last decade or so.

What was partly noticeable in the tall mirror, too, which she confirmed when she looked down at the rest of her body, was that her breasts looked more rounded and voluptuous, more firm, than they had prior to the Time-Turner accident. Once Hermione and Filius had left her rooms the day prior and she had at last been alone, for the first time since what she referred to as 'the accident' in her head, she had had to find one of her old bras in the very back of her drawer and had had to use magic to make it fit properly. The other one had hurt, and it had suddenly gotten so small her breasts spilled from it in less-than-modest ways.

A sigh fell from thin lips as the former Headmistress turned away from the mirror and the reflection that was her, yet wasn't. Hogwarts had been a home to Minerva McGonagall for so long that she didn't have to pay any attention to where she was going any longer as she left the bathroom and thereupon chose to make for the sanctity of her bedroom.

The moonlight that shone softly through the thin curtains illuminated Minerva's bedroom just a bit. She hadn't bothered to turn on the light. Shapes danced upon the ceiling, she noted when she looked up at it, settled under her covers. She watched them very carefully, yet didn't. The shapes became vague as her mind pushed the many worries that she had tried to suppress for now to the surface of Minerva's sleepy consciousness. What a day it had been. She was too exhausted for words. It would be a very long night, too, though. She felt the pounding in her right ankle as she rolled over. How was she going to do all this again?


	23. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

When she walked in, Hermione's parents already seemed to have gone to bed. The semi-detached house was dark and cold, with the lights turned off. Despite the fact that it was summer, it did still get quite cold at night, as she had discovered. Hermione hadn't gone home immediately ── instead, she had Apparated to a park in the neighborhood and had just sat on a bench there, in the cold, darkening evening, lost in thought as many memories of her pushing Rose and Hugo on the swings and of them going down the slide and being intrigued by the ducks in the small pond flooded her mind. At last, near midnight, she had gotten too cold; the mother had taken a deep sigh and had Apparated to her parents' house.

Hermione Granger was exhausted, and she had a terrible headache. She felt how her head pounded, and she could swear that it was only getting worse every second. When she entered the kitchen and turned on the light, she saw a small note on the kitchen counter, in her mother's handwriting. Her mother had kept her dinner in the microwave, ready to heat up when she got back to the house. She never truly had understood all the mothering even when she had long passed the age of twenty until she had had Rose and Hugo and could very well imagine doing the same for them, and for the new baby in her womb, in twenty or thirty or more years' time. Since being a mother herself, Hermione had learned to appreciate those gestures more. As well-intended as it was, though, she felt sick at the thought of any sort of food.

Without thought, she felt herself walk to her room and shed her clothes and ready for bed, foregoing dinner. She felt so drained ── in every way. Sometimes, people didn't fit together, and that was not necessarily anyone's fault. It had to do with personalities, with limits, and with how people, based on both of these things, reacted.

The tears hadn't stopped in over an hour now, and still she felt like she couldn't stop anytime soon. Every single time she managed to calm down for a few minutes, the tears began to roll down her cheeks once again not even two minutes later, her mind dabbling in the conversation with Ron she had left and many more from before their divorce. With them, feelings came to the surface, and especially bad ones which she had really wanted to forget, but couldn't, because that wasn't how Hermione Granger's mind worked at all. She was certain that hormones resulted in her very emotional state of mind now, but she had reached a limit a long time ago, too.

She had needed a real change, and the end of her marriage was the first step to achieve that. It hadn't been an impulsive decision; she had put a lot of thought into telling him that she thought it was best they end their marriage. She had wanted the best for the children more than for her, and that was why it had been such a hard decision, but in the end, she had concluded that it was not more right for them to grow up in a home with their parents always fighting. She had moved back to live with her parents as a stop gap, but now she and her children had been there for close to two years. Her children didn't mind, she knew, nor did her parents, but still.

The change of job and living space was a big step in the right direction, too, but Hermione wasn't there yet. She needed to take a real hold of the life she led again, reevaluate everything ── and if not for herself, then for her children.

It would be very hard, though. She knew this well. What she knew as well, however, was that she could do it. There was no room for self-doubt. From tomorrow on, she would continue to go down this path, to that new journey she had set for herself, even though she did not know the destination yet exactly. _Tomorrow_. Exhausted, she collapsed onto her old bed and fell asleep nearly immediately.

Asleep, Hermione Granger was free from worry for just a few hours ── worry regarding things that had to be addressed. How would the children react to the news that she was going to have a baby again and that she was going to be a professor and move to Hogwarts permanently, for instance? It would be quite a lot for them to take in all at once. A change of life did come with its repercussions, things that had to be addressed for the wanted changes to happen and the risk of losing something that mattered to you, or someone.

The new life she carried in her womb would, of course, meant a stressful time to come once he or she was born. It came with being woken at night and many feedings, and with a lot more diapers. The fact that she was not going to work for the British Ministry of Magic anymore would already alleviate some of the stress, though ── potentially a lot of it as well. A part of her somehow felt... excited, too, as she thought of the new life she was going to care for in a few months' time. The feeling was incredibly brief, but there.

She was certain that Rita Skeeter would be delighted to know both bits of news and to write it as controversially as possible. She knew many letters would follow from people who didn't have any right to know how, know why, but were too curious not to ask anything once everything exploded. Shame wasn't a part of it for her, but the critique from strangers who had the nerve to judge for being human.


	24. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Clad in only a bra and panties, Hermione let her eyes scan over the contents of her, mostly full of dark and professional attires, wardrobe. It was a little after eight, and, as if her body had known she no longer had to be up early to go to the Ministry, she had only woken to the bright rays of sunshine that steamed into her bedroom a few minutes prior. The witch felt more energetic than she had in several years, for her job at the Ministry and motherhood had made Hermione Granger run on only six hours of sleep a night for the last decade ── if that.

With a little smile upon her lips, she took a hold of her old, comfortable jeans. She couldn't remember the last time that she had worn them on a normal day in the week. Maybe today wasn't normal, though ── not for her. She would have to go by Hogwarts that morning sometime, but otherwise, she could fill her day in just as she pleased, and the premise of such a clear schedule made a calmness come over her that she hadn't felt in a long time.

When she reached for the bright blue top that lay on top of her small, rarely addressed pile of casual tops, she caught her reflection in the tall mirror that stood beside her wooden wardrobe. Obviously, Hermione's pregnancy didn't show yet. Still, Hermione turned and inspected herself very carefully from every angle. That's when she felt those very first sparks of trepidation, at the thought of her belly, visibly, full of new life, in just a few months' time.

At last, Hermione looked away and slowly began to get dressed. She didn't have to rush to get dressed, for once. When she walked into the kitchen just a few minutes later, she found her parents seated at the small table. Surprise laced their faces when she greeted them. "Morning," she said, then reached for one of the cupboards to retrieve a cup and sat down in her usual spot. It had been many years since she had gotten to sit down and have a morning meal together with her parents. "I resigned yesterday," Hermione announced in response to her parents' unspoken question. She reached for the pot of tea and filled her cup halfway before setting it back down. She then shifted her body and took a hold of her cup, lifting it up to her lips and gingerly sipping from it.

"You mean, you're not going to be working at the Ministry anymore?" Mrs. Granger asked, voice slightly higher in pitch. She had known that Hermione's job was stressful and that her daughter hadn't been very happy with her job for a while now, but she never would have expected for her to just quit, one day.

Hermione nodded as she set her cup down, although she still kept her hands upon the porcelain. "No, I'm not," she confirmed, "I already have an alternative, though. I still have to go by Hogwarts later today, to go over a few small details with the Headmaster, and to sign all the papers, I presume, but from September on, I will teach Transfiguration." She paused, but when she saw the concerned looks on both her mother and her father's still-confounded faces, she added, as an afterthought, "Don't worry... I will make arrangements for the weeks the children are with me and shall ensure you can still see them, as much as possible."

"You're going into teaching?" Mrs. Granger repeated. She recalled very well the conversation she had had with her daughter the summer before her third year at Hogwarts. She had had to pick subjects, and that had reminded her of the fact that she had no idea at all as to what she wanted to do with life. Mrs. Granger had suggested that she become a teacher and enlighten the new generation. Her daughter had claimed that she would never ever teach, without going into the reasons why not.

"I am," Hermione confirmed with a small smile that faded as she got more serious. "I... I have wanted a change for a long time, but it was catalyzed by news I received a few days ago now. I'm with child again."

"You're?"

"What?"

Of her own accord, Hermione answered the questions she knew her parents had. "I haven't been dating. I wonder where I would have found the time to do so, as lately I have been home only to sleep or shower and have a quick change of clothes. I'm also not ready to be with anyone new yet. It is too early for me. I hadn't been happy with Ron for a long time, and I don't doubt my reasons to get a divorce were founded in every way. We were together for close to two decades, though, and it is very hard to come to a juncture where you have to throw it away, because that's how it feels." She sighed. "He... held me up one night after I put the children to bed with him, and that lead further than we could have anticipated, very quickly."

It was a neat way of telling them what had happened without going into details while still making it clear enough, she felt.

It was true that she still cared a great deal about Ronald Weasley. After all, he was the father of her children, and that would always be meaningful. It didn't change the fact that in the end they were too different, though. She was someone who hoped and saw things as they could be, who got up to try again when she failed and never truly gave up, whereas Ron was the kind of person who saw things as they were, who hoped for unrealistic things often, and for them to come to him without any effort at that as well.


	25. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

"'Ermione!"

Hermione Granger halted her steps as she heard the familiar, rough voice and turned her head to see Hogwarts' old Keeper of Keys and Grounds wave his bin-sized hand at her from the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Fang II by his side and a bow and arrow over his shoulder. Hagrid had wanted a dog as similar as possible to the first when he passed away a few years prior. Despite the several feet between herself and the half-giant, Hermione still noticed the smile that was mostly hidden by the Gamekeeper's hairy beard and moustache. As he came closer, she noticed the way his dark, beady eyes twinkled with joy at getting to see her, however briefly, again, and she couldn't help her own smile. "Good morning, Hagrid," she greeted. "I see you've already been to the Forest very early"

"Ah! Ye're quite early yerself!" Hagrid exclaimed as he at last came within reach and, without warning, pulled the witch in a tight, awkward embrace. She could swear she heard how her bones cracked, and she tried not to struggle to break free. "I haven't seen ye in some time!" he continued. "Always busy at the Ministry, they say when I see someone. Ye're not workin' today for once then?" he wondered.

"Ah..." Hermione shook her head sideways. "No, I'm not working," she confirmed. "In fact, I do not work at the Ministry anymore. I felt the time for a change was right and quit just yesterday."

"Oh," Hagrid responded, a bit dumbfounded. "So then what ye doin' at Hogwarts? Came ta visit me as soon as ye had a chance?" His little eyes twinkled upon the idea. He hadn't seen her or Harry or Ron in so long.

Hermione bit her lip. "Uhm... No, in fact I was on my way to the Headmaster's office. Yesterday, he said I should come by before noon to run over some last things together, so that I can teach at Hogwarts from September on." She chuckled a bit as she noticed Hagrid's confused expression. "Professor Hodgins is retiring, and so the Transfiguration position immediately became available. I guess from next month, you'll be seeing me a lot more often."

"Tha's great!" Hagrid exclaimed, and his smile grew wider. "I'm so glad ta hear it! So we'll be colleagues from now on, too, then ── jus' like Neville Longbottom! Ye know, I always knew that ye had that in ye, if ye wanted to teach. Ye'll be great for them little witches and wizards!"

A small smile was all that she could give, as the Gamekeeper obviously reveled in the news. She was glad that Hagrid didn't ask her why she hadn't dropped by before. She felt guilty right then as she realized just how little of him she had seen of late. Declined invitations. Many of them as well.

It was true that, up until her resignation, she had very often been too busy with Ministry-related business or with the children to follow up on most invitations of her friends. Then when she had been at Hogwarts the days before, Hermione had been too preoccupied to stop by.

Hermione smiled and stood on her tip-toes to give Hagrid a peck on the cheek. Luckily, he realized her intent in time and bent over ── otherwise, she wouldn't have managed that high. She felt her confidence grow; it was so nice to hear someone other than Minerva say she would be good at teaching as well. "I'm sorry I don't have more time," she apologized when she pulled away, "but I am sure that the Headmaster has a bunch of other commitments besides running through the last few details of the post with me, too."

"Of course," Hagrid stated. "I should go to Knockturn Alley anyway. There's a new colony of Flesh-Eating Slugs in the school cabbage. I have ta get rid of them soon. They eat it all, plus they'll be gett'n' young ones."

"Alright," Hermione stated. "I'll see you later again?"

As Hagrid nodded at that, she smiled at him one last time and continued her path up to the large castle. She let her feet carry her to her destination as she remembered the few times that she had visited the Headmaster's Tower, typically with Harry or because of him. She mused if most of Hogwarts' students even knew the location of the Headmaster's office. She knew that not all pupils entering Hogwarts had cared to read _Hogwarts, A History._

As she reached the gargoyle that guarded the Headmaster's office, she realized she didn't know the password.

The ugly stone gargoyle looked at her questioningly. Before she, however, had a chance to say she didn't know the password and tell the guard why she was there, he asked, "Hermione Granger?"

"Ah. Yes?"

"The Headmaster informed me that a lady with that name would come by today for a meeting with him," the old stone gargoyle spoke, moving aside to let her pass already.

Gratefully, Hermione took a small step forward onto the moving spiraling staircase. She let herself be carried up the stairs slowly, and a minute later, she stood by the dark oaken door to the Headmaster's circular office. She raised a hand to knock on the door and then nearly gasped in surprise when it flew open on its own already.

"Miss Granger," Filius Flitwick greeted from his chair at the stately desk, and Hermione quietly assumed he must be sitting on a bunch of pillows to reach this specific height or be utilizing a series of charms. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience with the password. I only realized you could not possibly know the password when I got down to my office, this morning." He indicated the tall chair that stood on her side of the large desk. "Please, sit down," he offered.

As she sat down, she felt like a Hogwarts pupil again.


	26. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Hermione Granger tried to mentally prepare herself for a 'younger' Minerva, but she couldn't have possibly prepared herself for the sight that met her as she walked into her former professor's chambers. As the door fell in the lock with a ting that rang through the room, Minerva looked up, and a small smile graced youthful features, in a way that Hermione thought to be both incredibly familiar, yet not. She was sat on the couch with her legs curled up under her body; her long dark wand balanced on the arm rest, and the rest of the dark red settee was entirely littered with books and what appeared to be albums.

"Good morning," Minerva said, in such a way that implied that she had already been expecting Hermione at her door.

The brunette nodded mutely as she sat down on the couch that wasn't absolutely occupied. She let her eyes slowly take in Minerva's younger physique. She felt mildly shocked as she saw that Minerva's raven hair was in a long braid hanging over her shoulder, though. Seeing Minerva without the very tight bun she had long learned to associate with the witch was a tad strange. Maybe Minerva hadn't expect for her to stop by, she mused... but then she corrected herself. She had. Minerva's reaction had spoken volumes.

Hermione thought Minerva looked really nice with her hair braided over her shoulder; it made her appear younger than the age she thought she had been cast back to even. The new look accentuated her willowy neck, and it contrasted with the skin in a way that her customary bun couldn't have. Hermione's breath caught. She was very beautiful. Of course, Minerva had always had a grace about her, even before what had happened with the Time-Turner, but she hadn't been attractive in that way. Hermione wondered why her former professor had never gotten married ── for all she knew, at least. She was gently reminded of the fact that, in the end, she knew very little about Minerva McGonagall's personal life.

"How are you feeling?" Hermione questioned, to break the silence.

"I'll live..."

From the dismissive answer, Hermione knew Minerva wouldn't let her inquire any further and thus let the subject be, for now. "Rose has her birthday party at the Weasleys' on Saturday, so I'm hoping to move most of my things to Hogwarts on Sunday..."

Minerva tilted her head as she noted the other woman's seemingly unenthused tone and weary chocolate eyes. She shoved the album in her hands on top of the other books, albums and diaries that she had retrieved the day before. The ex-Headmistress had been slow moving that morning, and she had decided to look through them before really getting to the rest of her 'spring-clean'. After all, she hadn't exactly gotten far the day prior. "It doesn't seem like you're excited," the Animagus stated calmly.

"I..." When she couldn't find the right words, she shook her head. She lifted her gaze upwards, looked at Minerva with red eyes. The thought of her row with Ron alone and the birthday party that Saturday, where both their friends and family and alcohol would be very nearby, made her fear that he might say too much and that way ruin their daughter's party. She should have waited to tell him the news until after at least, she thought.

Ronald usually tended to have a bit too much at parties at the Weasleys' and elsewhere. He then got chatty and far too candid to everyone. Some people say things they don't mean when they're intoxicated ── most of them, maybe. However, the words Ron spoke when he was intoxicated were words that came straight from the heart, so to speak. Hermione had discovered that very soon in their marriage. Come morning, he would never even remember his moments of truth. She still would, though.

She felt the tears well up. Rose and Hugo had, all in all, coped with the divorce very well. Nonetheless, she knew that they had suffered and still did from the changes, from the feelings that existed between their parents, in the aftermath. After all, it had not been all that long.

"What's the matter?" Minerva asked as she noticed the tears Hermione so desperately tried not to show.

Hermione's face fell. She sighed very softly, nearly inaudibly. "Ron and I had an awful fight last night. I told him that I left the Ministry and why and... I sort of regret that I told him. I am afraid that he'll mention it at Rose's party. I would really like it if it didn't get to the public, at least until I'm further along."

Minerva understood very well what she meant... She un-tucked her legs and stood. However, because the former professor hadn't changed her position in so long, her legs had gone numb. As she stood, she felt the tingling numbness, as well as a harsh, lancing pain in her ankle and had to reach for the armrest of the old dark red couch in order to stay on her feet. The ex-Headmistress had purposefully tried to sit in such a way that she wouldn't put any weight on her very sore ankle, but now, as she reached for Hermione to try to comfort her, she seemed to have somehow entirely forgotten about the injury.

Her fingers tightened on her long, ebony wand. She pushed off of the armrest and managed to plop on the couch Hermione occupied with what could loosely be construed as one more step. She waved her wand and conjured a pillow and an ice pack, not unlike the day before. She settled slightly better and lifted her ankle, then sighed at the small relief she felt and pulled Hermione in a one-armed hug as the first follow sob of many resounded from the woman with child. "Shh," Minerva soothed. "I know you don't believe it right now when it is still so soon after you turned your life upside down to accommodate for a new life, but it will all be all right. Believe me."

At that, Hermione lifted her gaze, so that she could look into the other woman's green eyes. Mocha and teal connected as Hermione brokenly whispered, "I believe you."

She didn't sound certain, but still a tiny smile came upon the ex-Headmistress' lips. "Good," she murmured, glad that her words appeared to have at least touched Hermione so that her tears ceased for a moment. Maybe Hermione realized that she was not alone in this. Minerva momentarily doubted whether to say it in words or not, but she kept herself from doing so. She didn't have to say it, for Hermione to know. She tightened her hold just a bit to make sure she knew and tenderly reached up with her other hand to wipe away the wet tear tracks from Hermione's flushed cheeks with her fingertips very gently before her hand fell away.

Hermione gripped Minerva to her tighter, sinking willingly into the embrace she so desperately wanted and needed as the unexpected moment of tenderness silently stretched on.


	27. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Hermione's gaze trailed to the albums strewn across the couch and in particular to the one that lay open and on top of the others.

Minerva noticed. With a flick of her wand but no spoken words, she summoned the album into her lap, and Hermione saw a large but very old picture of what she assumed to be Minerva's family.

"I am the only one who is left from this picture," Minerva whispered. "My parents got killed, as did both of my brothers, in 1954, by the last of Grindelwald's free men. I had only moved to London weeks prior, for my job at the Ministry of Magic." Momentarily, she chewed her lip. Then she continued. "I was at the Ministry before dawn, but I had only managed to sort through half of my post when a Patronus appeared. I... There wasn't much left when I got there. I was able to salvage but a few mementos."

"I'm so sorry," Hermione whispered as she let her eyes slide ever so slowly over the picture again. The knowledge that the happy family wouldn't last even a decade after the picture was taken had Hermione's heart clenched. There were many questions that the brunette wanted to ask the former Headmistress in that moment, but she didn't know if she should or could. Ultimately, Minerva was rather private. Hermione, too, assumed that what she had just shared wasn't shared easily. In the end maybe she should be glad to have had that, what she saw as a privilege.

Minerva's low but gentle timbre brought her from her internal struggle. "I am, too..." it sounded, "Despite the fact that it has been so long ago now, I sometimes, as odd as it sounds, still smell the smoke and remember how clear the skies were over the smoking and burning remnants of what had been my home." She paused. She gently closed the album. "I will never in my entire life forget the sight of all the Aurors who waited for me to show up as they guarded the little that was left of my childhood home, both of my brothers' and my parents' deaths already confirmed. I did my best to patch up what was left of the house after the funeral, but I never managed to make it look like it did before. It is in my name still, but I never returned."

Intuitively, Hermione moved her hand gently on top of Minerva's injured one. "I do not know what to say," she admitted. She wanted to say that she was sorry, but she knew the words were only empty and didn't take away from the pain her former mentor had gone through so many years ago and apparently was still, by the sight of her. She couldn't blame her.

Minerva didn't answer her ── instead, the former professor averted her gaze and just stared off into the distance. All of a sudden, Hermione felt like she was an intruder. She knew how curious of a memento a picture album was. Pictures were a way to capture specific moments in time in such a manner that allowed for you to go back to them and to relive the feelings you felt, whether happiness or sadness or other emotions. They immortalized the past in a way: detailed, yet not. After all, there's so much to a memory aside from the visual. In life, there's also a lot that can change over time, so that, sometimes, looking at them can truly seem much like a window into another world.

"I should..." Hermione began.

The walls that Minerva McGonagall had constructed in order to protect herself had crumbled for one moment there as memories overtook her mind as well as heart, Hermione realized, and somehow she felt the desperate need to be let in and to be able to offer some kind of comfort to her, but Minerva was already turning back into herself again... as if she, too, had realized that she had let her walls crumble, and as if an alarm had gone off inside the ex-Headmistress' head, telling her to forge those walls together again, as soon as possible. It was too soon, and Hermione knew that.

The brunette slowly got up from the couch. As she eyed her former mentor, she somehow felt like she and her incredible curiosity were the only reason for Minerva's state of sadness. "I, ah..."

"You don't have to go," Minerva stated as she blinked and lifted her gaze up to look at the younger woman once more.

Hermione leaned down to peck Minerva's left cheek with her lips, chastely. "I do have to," she breathed. "If I hope to move my things ── and the children's ── this Sunday, I still have a lot of work to do. I also still have to get Rose's birthday gift. I haven't been able to pick it up in Muggle London yet."

"Why, I should get back to my 'spring-clean', too, I reckon," Minerva mused, "I haven't gotten very far, due to the... ah, accident."

Hermione smirked. "That's a simple way of putting what has happened," she stated as she made her way from Minerva's rooms.

"Simple works for now. I am certain that the situation will get very complicated very soon, once someone from the _Prophet_ or someone else discovers," Minerva commented as Hermione already reached for the doorknob _._

"You know as well as I do that it will only be a matter of _time_ until it gets uncovered and spread all over the headlines..." Hermione said.

"I know..."

She knew they would uncover, sooner rather than later. The attention from newspapers had strayed off of her a lot since she retired, as if they had all only cared a great deal about the position she held rather than her, as a person, as a woman. This news would definitely get the Wizarding communities' attention, though.


	28. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

As usual, it was clear that Molly and Arthur had done quite some effort to make sure Rose had a great birthday party, as they always did for all of their grandchildren on their respective birthdays. Hermione noticed several paper lanterns with magical lights in them hanging from posts. With a tiny smile of gratitude for the work of her ex-mother-in-law, she noted they were shaped like Rose's favorite animal ── a butterfly ── and various in their size and their color. The Weasleys had placed long tables in the grassy yard, as they did very often with parties. Their kitchen was too small for both family and friends if they, too, were invited. Molly lifted her gaze up from laying the last sparkly tablecloth as Hermione neared her. "Would you like some help?" Hermione asked.

"Oh no, dear," Molly said, and she cast a warm smile up at the younger Gryffindor as she did, "I'm already finished," she clarified, then leaned in and hugged Hermione tightly before briefly pecking her on the cheek as a way to wish her welcome.

Hermione returned the gesture. Once again, she felt a big wave of gratitude for the Weasley matriarch. She knew that it had been hard for her ex-mother-in-law to accept Ron and hers divorce, but that had never changed how the older Gryffindor treated her, for she still did so with just the same kindness. Neither Molly nor Arthur had blamed Hermione for it all, either. Hermione and Molly had had a long talk about the matter the week after she had announced that Ron and she had decided to separate on a trial period, to take some time and evaluate what had happened to their marriage on their own and in their own time. Molly knew that the decision had not been made rashly at all. She would have liked for them to remain married, but she was very well aware that her ex-daughter-in-law had made any and all effort to save their relationship, and the same just couldn't be said for her son.

Hermione Jean Granger remembered the day she told him that they should take a break for a while very well. It hadn't been very unlike the conversation they had had the day before: scarlet ears, angry screams...

_"What did you do that for?! I──"_

_"Ron..." she interrupted the father of her children when he yelled at her for turning off the television ── she swore he didn't even like Muggle football, though. "We have to talk," she stated as she let her back rest against the TV closet and looked him right in the eye._

_Ron's eyes rolled as he suspected she was only going to lecture him about not helping more in the household again. She had scolded him that morning when she walked in the bathroom when he was taking a shower and saw that he had thrown all of his dirty clothes right on the floor instead of sorted them like she had asked him to do so often already in the dirty clothes baskets. Like usual, Ron had stated that he would do it after his shower, but she had doubted him and had told him that, as he didn't really make any contribution to the housework in any other way either and that fact wasn't likely to change, he could at least do that. He hadn't done it after his little shower either, and Hermione had had to pick up his dirty clothes and sort them herself._

_"I..." Hermione started. She sighed. She chewed her lip. It didn't help her. There was no other way to say what she knew she had to ── or not without the seriousness of the situation_ somehow _getting compromised, at least. She spoke. "I'm not happy, Ron. I haven't been for many years really. Therefore, I would like for us to try live separately, for a little while, so that we can re-evaluate what we expect from this and see if it is possible."_

_"A separation?!" Ron had exclaimed at the top of his lungs._

_"Only for a while, maybe... I just, I need some me-time to re-evaluate this marriage right now. I need a bit of distance to do so."_

Hermione had hoped that a bit of alone-time would have made Ron realize that they had to work on their marriage. He hadn't. At first, she had had hope that just maybe they could have a clean slate and go from there and be the people, the couple, they had been when they first got together, but as the months slowly passed, that feeling had dissipated. After nearly a year and no more hope, she had told him that she saw no future for them as a couple anymore. Ron and she signed the divorce papers weeks later. It hadn't been easy, but to her, it had felt like the only right decision in their situation.

Like the alone-time then, she had very much needed the day before ── no obligations, no stress. Before noon, Hermione had visited a few shops in Diagon Alley, and, after noon, she had shopped in Muggle London. She had gotten a few things for herself and some new towels and sheets and covers for Hugo and Rose, for the move. She got Rose's birthday gift in Muggle London, ordered long before: a large art box with sixty oil-based pastels, paints and pencils and a sundry of other items that she could draw and paint with. Additionally, Hermione had bought half a dozen canvases for her to draw and paint on.

"Are you all right, dear?" Molly asked when she saw the look in Hermione's eyes: faraway, unfocused.

Hermione blinked. "Oh. Of course," she said. "I'm sorry."

Molly smiled. "Go ahead," she said. "Everyone's inside."

Hermione smiled, as well. She made for the door only to pause for a moment when she reached the doorframe. While she really liked getting quality time with her children and friends and family, for she saw the Weasleys as such still, she wasn't too fond of having to see Ron so soon after their row. She stilled her nerves and hoped for the best as she walked into the kitchen. When she stepped in the room, she noticed her ex immediately, as well as their children, with Harry and Ginny and their three children right across from them at the large table, and George and Bill and their respective wives and children scattered across the rest of the room. The Gryffindor brunette suspected that Charlie and Percy had other commitments, with the first still in Romania and Percy and his family in Germany to visit with his in-laws. Arthur was seated in his usual chair at the end of the table. He was laughing at Lily's childish antics.

"Hello."

Immediately, a chorus of greetings from all sides rose in response. Ron's gaze fell to the carpet when his ex-wife's eyes lingered on him. As she walked up to the others, she hoped he would just act like an adult tonight and be sensible.

He did for most of the evening only.


	29. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Rose smiled widely as she opened the large wooden case and saw what it held. This art set was even better than the one she had seen when she was in London with Granny Jean! "Dad, look at what Mum got me!"

Ron, however, didn't show any interest. Rose's face fell at her father's lack of response. Ginny, seated beside her brother, noticed and shared a look with Harry, who nodded barely perceptibly. "Who's up for a game?" he announced, and at once all the children lifted their gazes, interest piqued, curious at what he would suggest. He then got up from his seat and winked at Hermione before setting off to the cornfield that belonged to the Weasley family. In response, the children got up from their seats as well and ran after him, Hugo first, and very soon there were no children left at the long table. Bill and Fleur smiled after them with mirth.

When Harry and the children weren't within earshot anymore, Ginny turned to Ron angrily. "Could you act like you care for one damn moment?" she hissed. "She's your daughter, and this is for her birthday. You could show some interest, instead of guzzling down whiskey after whiskey."

The red-headed wizard cast his sour gaze towards his sister. "What I do and don't do is none of your business, Ginny!" Ron bellowed so loud that his mother, seated at the other end of the table, was certain that the children could hear.

"Oh, Ron, don't be so childish," Ginny said in a tone that sounded a great deal like her mother's when she used to lecture them.

Ron's eyes fell on his ex-wife, and Hermione felt the knot in her stomach tighten. She knew that her hope for him to act like an adult had been in vain and that all his anger, combined with the alcohol he had had, would result in an explosion. She felt the tears burn in her eyes.

Ron's fingers tightened on the half-full whiskey glass for a moment before he picked the bell-shaped object up and propelled it at the back wall, full force. Shards of glass flew everywhere, and the alcohol that had still been in his glass slowly streaked down the old paint. Molly's rapid intervention kept anyone from getting hurt as she Vanished the glass shards. This, however, only seemed to make Ron angrier. His ears turned scarlet as he fumed at his sister, whose gaze didn't waver.

"Ron..." Arthur tried in a calm tone as he slowly rose from his chair.

"Ron..." Molly said warningly as she saw him reach for his old, willow wand. Molly's hand had remained on hers after the glass burst. The anger that played in her son's eyes and the way that they stayed focused solely on his sister, made it seem like Ronald would hex her. Then he turned to Hermione; then his gaze travelled to his mother and father as if he didn't know whom to hex first. He seemed very disoriented and downright dangerous, undoubtedly fueled and driven by alcohol.

The redhead's eyes slanted when he turned back to his sister. "She's not much of a hero for Rose and Hugo at the end of the day, either," Ron said and nodded at Hermione meaningfully, "Hermione here left her job at the Ministry without any mention at all to me or our children. She'll teach Transfiguration at Hogwarts from now on. No word to the kids about the fact there's a new baby on the way, either. She's got no intention of getting back together with its father still, though. She would rather manage it on her own. Rather than be a little sensible about it, she wants to be the bullheaded one. It is in her benefit, not theirs."

Tears formed in Hermione's eyes. "I do most of it alone, already, and have for years, Ron! Due to my job at the Ministry, I haven't had as much time for Rose and Hugo as I wanted of late. I love the children a great deal, and I don't want to be the kind of parent who is never really there. I have wanted a change for a long time, and the professor position fell into my lap at the right time."

A cold and humorless laugh escaped Ron's mouth.

Hermione sighed. "Listen, Ron... I wasn't not going to tell them. In fact, I really wanted to inform them today, after Rose's birthday party, and have a conversation with them about the upcoming changes for both of them. I want to move my things to Hogwarts tomorrow, with them if possible. All of that depends on how they'll take it." Hermione's tone was full of hurt, clearly audible. "I guess I knew I shouldn't have expected for you to show any discretion, even if I really needed for you to act like an adult about this."

Without words, Ronald Weasley shot to his feet and pointed his wand in Hermione's direction. Anger flared in the man's gaze, a hex already forming on his lips.

"Ron!" Molly screeched, unnaturally high.

Hermione only just managed to deflect the hex. As she did so, the witch stumbled backwards from the energy she needed to produce the shield, especially that unprepared. As her wand arm lowered and the shield fell immediately away, she reached for her lower belly. Her eyes fell shut as she shakily exhaled. Nausea washed over her as her abdomen painfully contracted.

Ginny, forgetting Ron entirely for now, rushed to the brunette's side and tried her best to support her.

Hermione, heavy breaths coming from her, tried to gather herself. Silence overtook ── even Ron didn't say a word. Several moments later, the pain less acute, Hermione straightened, and she pierced Ron's shocked eyes. It seemed as if the man had surprised himself by being so aggressive. "I don't know what has happened to the man you were, Ronald, but I can't be with the man you've become, influenced by alcohol or not."

"'Mione, I'm──"

"Enough," she interrupted. She slowly turned to Molly, who still seemed astonished by her son's behavior. "Please, tell Rosie I am sorry that I couldn't stay. Tell her that I'll answer all of her questions tomorrow." Tears blurred Hermione's vision. She hated that she had to lie to her children. "I'll answer yours as well, but I can't deal with all this just now."

Molly quietly nodded in response.

She turned back to Ron again. "I'll come get Rose and Hugo tomorrow, at nine. Please make sure they're ready."

Without looking at her former sister-in-law, she squeezed her hand with all of the apologies and gratefulness she could muster. Despite the unanticipated news, Ginny was still by her side, as always. With a wave of her wand, Hermione summoned her belongings. Without another word, the Gryffindor walked to the perimeter and past it so that she could Apparate.

As she did, she heard her daughter's familiar laughter, coming from the field nearby; she closed her eyes. She couldn't stay there a moment longer, like she couldn't have stayed in her marriage.


	30. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Apparition didn't help the nausea. In fact, it made it intensify only.

Dizziness was a common side effect for those who chose to travel that way without holding onto the three D's: destination, determination and deliberation. This was the case for most students who first learned to put Apparition in practice and weren't experienced enough. However, it happened with experienced people when upset as well. When someone was as upset as Hermione was and felt the way she did, it wasn't possible to Apparate 'correctly'. Therefore, it only lead to her feeling worse. Magic was a vicious circle, sometimes.

By the time she stood by the gates of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, tears were visible upon Hermione's cheeks. She eyed the large, seven-storey high castle with its many towers and turrets. Hermione's hand moved over her lower abdomen as another shred of pain passed through it. She needed to sit, to lie down... This pain wasn't normal.

With a pang, Hermione Jean Granger realized the castle itself wasn't her sanctuary, but one specific person within it, who provided her the rest and calmness she so desperately needed, and she had needed that rest and that calmness a lot lately... had needed Minerva... Minerva McGonagall was whom she ran to now. She was the one person who could provide Hermione with a comfort that made her really feel like she could tell her everything. She hadn't run to anyone for nearly a decade, and now she had and she felt the weight of her worries lighten already when she thought of Minerva and the fact that she would be with her very soon. She had become a balm that helped to ease her weary soul ── in days only.

She had always had an admiration for Minerva as a witch and professor and Deputy Headmistress while she attended Hogwarts. Those feelings had changed a great deal in nature, but they hadn't in intensity despite all the years they hadn't really spoken ── let alone in-depth ── and that scared her a bit. She had gained several years in age since that time of her life, after all.

Momentarily, Hermione considered maybe the extra years were why Minerva and she were 'closer' now than they had. After all, she had only been a teenager back when she attended Hogwarts ── a child. She had gained a lot of wisdom and life experience since. She understood things that she wouldn't have then, and that made it so that their 'relationship' now was one of two adults on an equal level, intellectually and emotionally. Regardless of the maturity the brunette had always had, this hadn't truly been so when she was still a pupil. If she hadn't had that kind of maturity then, she doubted they ever would have really made a connection. Minerva had said that Hermione reminded her a lot of herself in her teenage years, once.

As she reached for the cold iron gates and held onto a metal bar tightly, the tears came faster. She wasn't sure if she could go up to the castle anymore. She felt as if she couldn't walk one step further. She felt so drained that any small distance was too much, even. Hermione hoped that the baby was all right ── that was of the most importance to her.

She had had dizzy spells when she was with Rose and Hugo as well the first few months. The stress of the situation hadn't helped now. This stress was a rough patch she knew she just had to go through to reach a place where the stress would lessen, she tried to remind herself when she had a hard time with the looming changes. If only the rest of the world didn't have to have its opinion, it would be so much easier. She should be able to just... ignore it, and that was partially what she did. She didn't care all too much about what they all said about her ── rather about the fact that they had to have a say to begin with in order to try and get their scoop.

The moment Hermione Jean Granger's fingers touched the harsh, cold iron from the gates, Minerva McGonagall felt the small magical deviation, although she hadn't entered the domain yet. That wasn't what made Minerva rise to her feet then and turn her head to look from the window, though. She had been settled comfortably on her couch with an old book from the days of her youth when she had suddenly felt a prickling, along the back of her neck... something familiar, somehow. As she let her eyes rove over the familiar domain, she noted someone by the gates.

Minerva's decision was already made in a matter of seconds only as she recognized the woman who was braced against Hogwarts' iron gates. As she ripped her eyes away from the window, she leapt, morphing into a tabby cat, and began to run. The door flew aside on its own accord to let her though as she sprinted faster than she had in years through the familiar corridors. Minerva felt the muscles burn in her legs as she can. The ex-Headmistress hadn't really changed into her Animagus self for years now, and she could feel it very well... as she did her sore ankle. She couldn't care less, though. Driven by worry and her need to reach Hermione, the Animagus pushed on, as fast as ever.

_Hermione._

She had to get to Hermione as fast as possible. She felt that the younger witch was in need.

There had to be a very good reason why Hermione was there and not at her daughter's birthday celebration, at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry instead of The Burrow. Hermione wasn't the kind of mother who would leave her child's party unless she was forced to do so in any way ── unless she didn't really have another choice.

She ran across many staircases and passed several hallways without thought. A map of Hogwarts had imprinted itself in her mind decades ago. As she reached the main hallway at last, Hogwarts' double wooden doors seemed to feel Minerva's urgency and already began to open on their own accord the very moment she landed on the bottom step. When she reached the oaken doors, they were open wide enough, so that she could dart through.

Feline-like green eyes landed on Hermione's form and remained trained on her as Minerva kept running, following the natural sandy pathway that lead from the marble staircase to the gates. The Animagus didn't believe that Hermione had noticed her former professor until she was but a small distance away anymore, when Minerva's shape grew and she morphed in a woman once more.

"Minerva..." it escaped the new mother-to-be. Despite her weakened state, a tiny smile still formed upon Hermione lips as she felt the elder witch's presence.

Minerva was with her. Minerva would make everything right, as always.   
  
With this last thought, Hermione Jean Granger slumped in a welcome unconsciousness at long last, where she felt no pain anymore.


	31. Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Hermione's heavy eyelids fluttered at the faint light dancing across her features and the welcome cooling touch upon her forehead. Sleep held her in a vice as she forced her eyes open, and the blurry, heavy wooden beams and stone ceiling ── Hogwarts' recognizable structures ── came into focus. Slowly, she turned her head to the side, and a de-aged Minerva McGonagall eyed her with worry. "How long have I been unconscious?" Hermione rasped and cleared her throat as bits and pieces of her memories fell into place. When she felt how dry and sore her throat was, she assumed she must have been for a little while, at least.

"Two hours or so," Minerva replied. Green eyes scanned over Hermione's features. "I brought you to my rooms and informed Poppy ── I am afraid that I didn't really have another choice; you were incredibly weak. She thought it would be best to let you rest a bit and stated I had to inform her if you were still in any kind of pain once you woke." Minerva's worry was written on her face as she asked her question, "How are you feeling?", requesting an honest response.

Hermione's brow crinkled. She weighed the question and her answer as she let one of her hands move over her abdomen. "I'm not in pain," she said, after several seconds.

Minerva knew from the relief that was clearly visible in Hermione's gaze that she was telling the truth, and a small smile made it across her lips. "I'm glad."

"Me, too," Hermione admitted. "I was afraid that..." She did not finish, but she didn't have to either. Minerva understood. She had thought and had feared the same. She let her hand slide down slightly and met warm, long and feminine fingers. She lifted her head slightly ── it was Minerva's hand, she confirmed, that rested on top of her belly as well.

When Minerva realized this, she made to pull her hand back, but Hermione was faster. She grasped the other woman's hand and held onto it ── their fingers laced together loosely over her abdomen, where her child was resting.

The women's gazes lifted. Both of them smiled gently. After a few more seconds, Minerva looked away and down at their hands. That's when she felt Hermione squeeze her hand, and she returned this gesture. No words needed to be said. Communication was in the way the women's hands were entwined, and in the meaning the touch held. _I'm with you._ _I'm here._

Hermione studied Minerva's de-aged face. She knew that she was the same woman deep inside, before and after what had happened with the Time-Turner, but somehow, she couldn't imagine eighty-four-year-old Minerva sit there and act so tenderly. She still held a firmness that was replaced by softer lines rarely, but she felt and saw a difference within this Minerva and the one from before her little accident, although she couldn't put her finger on what it was. In that moment, Hermione Jean Granger didn't consider that maybe the way her former professor was with her wasn't due to the Time-Turner incident. She didn't consider that Minerva's attitude was only due to the fact that it was her.

"How long do you imagine you'll be able to hide?"

Minerva's gaze lifted up to meet Hermione's as she pursed her thin lips. "As long as remotely possible."

When the former Gryffindor Head of House didn't continue, Hermione nodded. She had never been a nosy sort of person, and she wasn't in the right state of mind to push on anyway. If Minerva really wanted to speak to her about it, she would ── or so Hermione hoped. She had hope that Minerva felt like she could tell her things the way Hermione felt she could with her in return.

The silence lasted for several, long moments.

Minerva ran her thumb very gently over the fellow Gryffindor's hand. She gathered the courage to ask what needed asking. "Hermione... What happened?"

"Ron..." Hermione whispered. She shook her head. Her eyes fell upon the older witch. She tried desperately to push back the tears she felt pressing against the backs of her blurry eyes. "I guess I knew that he wouldn't manage to keep the news to himself for a few weeks, until I was ready to tell the rest of the world."

"Would you say you regret telling Ronald then?" Minerva inquired.

"No... Maybe. I'm not sure." Hermione sighed. "I don't regret that I told him the news, as he had every right to know. However, I regret the way he reacted and the fact that he felt the need to tell everyone before I was ready to do so. I'm still very overwhelmed, and I am not that far along yet. A lot can happen. I regret letting myself hope that he could be considerate. I don't know if it is typically male or typically Ron not to be." She tightened her hold on Minerva's hand considerably, yet unknowingly. "A part of me tells me I should have waited, at least until after Rose's birthday party, but I am certain that the longer I would have waited, the angrier he would have reacted. All I know is that he's not the man I fell in love with. If he is, I can't believe I've been blinded for so long."

Minerva, who didn't consider herself to be the expert when it came to romantic relationships, either, stayed quiet. The ex-Headmistress understood that apparently a scene had been made and that Hermione had left Rose's birthday part as a consequence of that. She chose not to push on the subject any further. If Hermione wanted to speak more of the matter, she would.

"I just..." Hermione Jean Granger swallowed a ball of emotion as she shook her head back and forth. "I don't know what happened. I don't know how it could get to this, and how it could happen at all without my realization, until it was too late already..."

She felt the guilt towards her children and the rest of her family, for not having managed to make it work with Ron and putting Rose and Hugo through a horrid divorce... and a new baby now as well. Images of how Ron had attempted to hex her and the child crashed through her mind again... the shock in everyone's eyes when he told them that she was having a baby again... She knew that she had quite a few things to explain to everyone now, despite the fact that she was not ready to do so. In truth, however, she didn't know if she would be ready anytime soon. The Weasleys, who had always stayed so kind to her, deserved the truth, though. She would send them a letter by owl when she felt slightly better, she decided. Maybe tomorrow.

A hollow sob came from Hermione's throat, and she covered her mouth with a hand and muffled herself.

However, Minerva couldn't be fooled. She squeezed the hand that was still in hers and murmured gently, "Shh... It will be all right..."


	32. Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Gently, Minerva ran a hand through Hermione's unruly curls. At long last, the mother-to-be had fallen asleep, exhausted from the sobs that had wracked her body and the many tears that had fallen from her eyes. She didn't mind either, but she was glad that Hermione had fallen asleep ── while awake, there wasn't any peace at all for her.

As she lay with her head in her former professor's lap, curled up, she held an innocence and carelessness that she hadn't actually felt in a long time. Tenderly, Minerva threaded her fingers through unruly curls, as she gazed upon the now-woman she had once known as a small girl and pupil at Hogwarts. So much had changed ── and some of it for the worst.

The torches that flickered on the wall indicated that it was rather late already, and Minerva decided it would be best if Hermione remained at Hogwarts for the night. Hopefully, she could get a good night's sleep there. Carefully, Minerva slipped off of the couch and supported Hermione's head with a hand until the last second before she lowered it to the soft, dark red cushion. She barely moved at all.

With a wave of her wand, a charm settled on Hermione Jean Granger. Indeed, when Minerva bent down to lift the younger woman up into her arms, she weighed barely more than a feather. The ex-Headmistress quietly shifted Hermione in her arms. She tried to ignore how warm the younger Gryffindor felt against her, as she calmly carried her towards the newly-extended bedroom area.

With a softly-murmured, wandless spell, Minerva transfigured the woman's clothes into a nightdress that was slightly more comfortable before laying her on the bed as carefully as possible. Hermione's fingers tightened on the fabric of her former professor's robes as she made to leave to go to her own room. As she reached up to pry them away gently, Minerva discovered she couldn't without Hermione potentially awakening. She held onto her for dear life. A sigh eschewed from the raven-haired female as she concluded that she had no other choice but to lay down with Hermione for now.

She sighed as she lay on top of the sheets. If she really wanted to, she could free herself ── with magic or a less gentle method. However, an unknown but very strong feeling within Minerva's heart told her that she could not do either. So, instead, she just lay there and watched Hermione sleep. The brunette's head had already lolled onto her shoulder, seemingly comfortably, within seconds. Minerva didn't mind if it meant that Hermione could sleep somewhat peacefully. She needed the rest.

After several moments, Minerva McGonagall felt her eyelids grow heavy, too, although Hermione still hadn't loosened her grip. She wouldn't be able to leave Hermione's room anytime soon, she realized. She whispered the spell she had used, earlier, to change her robes into more comfortable attires as well. Clad in a nightdress, Minerva moved under the sheets. It wasn't very cold but still too much so to settle on top of the covers. She could summon a blanket from her own rooms or create one from thin air right then and there, but she wanted to not disturb Hermione's sleep, as much as remotely possible.

She didn't usually share a bed with anyone else, but then the week had been far from usual, already, and as strange and uncomfortable as it felt to share a bed with her former pupil, part of her didn't feel that strangeness at all. Soon enough, Hermione's soft breaths beside her sent the older woman into a rather peaceful sleep, too, despite the rather early hour.

Minerva didn't know how much later it was when she woke, but an unusual warmth had washed over her and pulled her from her slumber. It so appeared that she had rolled on her left side and Hermione had burrowed in her, as if to use her as a human shield, she realized when she came to. Hermione's arm was draped over her carelessly, feminine fingers upon her bare left thigh... and Minerva McGonagall suddenly realized exactly where the unknown yet somehow familiar sensation originated from. She felt the panic come over her.

She began to wriggle slowly sideways and discovered that, unlike earlier, she could free herself and leave as she pleased, without waking Hermione. So that's what she did. She didn't look back as she slipped from the double bed and all but ran for the door, to get to her own room.

The sheets gently rustled as Minerva escaped, which caused Hermione to wake for a few seconds anyway. What fully woke her then was the loss of softness underneath her fingertips, though. Drunken with sleep still, she didn't gather more than a brief flash of Minerva passing through the door. _Soft skin. Minerva's skin._ She wondered if she had just dreamed it or if it had been real for several seconds before she realized that it couldn't have been dreamed, if she remembered the touch so well underneath her fingertips.

What was happening, between her and Minerva? Or rather, what was happening to her in regards to Minerva? She was not gay... or bisexual. Minerva McGonagall just had to be straight, too.

What exactly was going on, between her and Minerva? Or rather, what exactly was it that made her believe that something was happening at all? She felt a kind of connection that she had never experienced before ── one she didn't know how to place right then. A connection, she knew, that Minerva McGonagall could never even begin to share.

It hit her more than ever that what she really knew of Minerva McGonagall and her life didn't begin to scratch the surface of who she was beneath the venerable exterior. Most of her very few suppositions had, truthfully, been based on appearance. What was Hermione truly certain of?


	33. Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Hermione's eyelids quivered as warm rays of sunlight streamed into the room and hit the Gryffindor's pale face. When she opened her hazel-colored eyes, she was met with strange surroundings, and she sat up in bed, only to recognize them as her room at Hogwarts Castle. She still felt utterly exhausted. She couldn't stay in bed all day, though. She had to get the children, and... She had no idea at all what time it was, she realized. Panicked, she let her eyes sweep across the room for an indicator of how late it could be, when her gaze fell on an old clock against the wall that had thick black Roman numerals on an aged plate. _Before eight_. She felt herself relax again.

The brunette's mother heart ached as she let her thoughts travel back to her daughter's birthday party, and how she had left without a word to Rose or Hugo. She felt like a horrendous mother for the way she had had to leave, but how could she have told her children the truth instead? How do you tell your teenage children their father tried to hex you into oblivion and seriously harm you?

She knew that her daughter would have a great deal of questions to ask about the how and why she had had to leave, though. She was her mother's daughter, after all. Hermione didn't know how to answer all her questions yet. What she did know was that, if she didn't get up very soon, she would be late, and the last that Hermione wanted, was give Ron another reason to criticize her as a mother. She reached for her long vine-wooden wand on the night table as she slipped from the bed and then made for the hallway. She realized just how much still had to be said. A very open and honest conversation between herself and Rose and Hugo would have to happen ── today. She chewed her lip and pondered if Ron had maybe told them the news already, of their mother's career change and the baby on the way. After all, she didn't know what had happened at the Weasleys after she left.

As she passed the doors to Rose's and Hugo's rooms, Hermione Jean Granger sincerely hoped Hogwarts Castle had been right. When she told them about the divorce, neither Rose nor Hugo had understood at first, but both of them had accepted their parents' ── mostly Hermione's ── decision in the end. Still, she felt very anxious. She didn't know what to expect.

As she walked into the common room, Hermione's eyes fell on Minerva's figure by the far window nearly immediately. She had an envelope in her hand, Hermione saw, when the former Headmistress turned to her with a little smile, her long ebony hair in a long braid over her shoulder, as it had been the night before. "How are you feeling?" she asked, as she made for the couch and a gesture of her hand suggested Hermione do the same.

Bare-footed, Hermione accepted Minerva's unspoken invitation. She crossed the room to the dark red couch and sat as Minerva took the couch opposite intuitively. The raven-haired former professor quirked her brow at the lack of response. Hermione's mouth opened in order to form a reply, but she didn't know how to answer really. Physically, she felt... fine. She told Minerva so.

When Minerva McGonagall sensed that Hermione wasn't ready or inclined to share her more emotional concerns, she handed her the very white envelope that had just arrived for her. "This just came for you from the Ministry," Minerva announced, "It appears to have Kingsley's seal on it."

Brow furrowed, Hermione reached to accept the Ministry envelope. _What now?_ Hermione thought as she saw, indeed, the Minister's red wax seal when she turned the envelope in her hands. She slid her nail across the wax and extracted a letter in Kingsley Shacklebolt's precise style. The brunette let her eyes scan over the contents of the letter, rapidly. "Kingsley's got someone to replace me," Hermione stated, without more. She didn't look up. When she lowered the paper in her hand at last, she let her gaze travel to the clock upon Minerva's low closet ─ seven-forty already. She had over an hour until she had to go get Rose and Hugo. "At nine, I'll have to go pick up Rose and Hugo," she voiced.

Minerva nodded. "I see. How do you feel about a small bite to eat before you go?" the former Headmistress asked, rhetorically. Before Hermione had a chance to answer, she called her Elf. "Elly?" she spoke, and at once, the large-eared creature appeared.

"Mistress. Ms. Granger," she acknowledged, and she bowed as was her and other House-Elves' usual, "Good morning to boths of yous."

"Good morning, Elly," Minerva greeted with a little smile. "Would you please be so kind as to have an early meal sent down for both Ms. Granger and myself?"

"Of course, Mistress!" Elly squeaked, and with a loud crack the Elf disappeared to do as told.

Within minutes, a luxurious tray appeared for them on the low table.

While Minerva reached for a small piece of toast, then the butter, Hermione took hold of the tea pot, careful not to spill or burn herself on the very brittle and seemingly very expensive, colorful porcelain. "Would you like some as well?" she offered. When she received Minerva's conformation in the form of a nod, she filled the former Headmistress' cup to the brim before she filled her own halfway. She wasn't very thirsty, but a spot of tea was really welcome. As she set the pot down and reached for her cup, she hoped Ron wouldn't make a fuss when she picked the children up ── not again. She sank back in the couch as she sipped from her tea; she savored the taste. Her new job entailed so many changes. If it hadn't been a job at Hogwarts, the children wouldn't have felt much of a difference in their lives from it, with the exception of course of Hermione being home more often ── that had been Hermione's intention with a new job at least.

"Hermione? Are you all right?"

The brunette was pulled from her thoughts when she heard her name, with a concerned undertone. She blinked. "I'm fine," she murmured and cracked a small smile. "I just... Maybe I should go by the Weasleys first, very quickly. I'm not very hungry anyway, and I owe them more than what I've given them ── just like the children."

Minerva nodded. "Have you decided how you'll tell the children yet?"

Hermione's head shook, but an idea hit her then... and she began to nod her head instead. "I do," she said. "I believe I've got an idea."

When the younger Gryffindor placed her still half-full cup on the low table and cast a tiny smile in Minerva's direction before she got up to go and freshen up ── or so Minerva assumed ── the former Headmistress wondered if Hermione Granger would be all right this morning.


	34. Chapter 33

Chapter 33

As Elly the House-Elf disappeared with a crack and what had been left of the tray that she had sent up, Minerva slipped a half-opened envelope from the folds of her dark red robes. The Gryffindor was known to prefer and wear darker shades of green, most of the time, but they all fit her very snugly now ── too snugly for her liking. She had never been too heavy for her height, at all ── in fact, Minerva had always been tall and lanky ── but she had gained back all the curves she had lost through the years when the Time-Turner burst and cast her body back in time. She didn't mind being slightly curvier again, but it did mean that she had to dig some older robes back up, for her own comfort.

The Gryffindor had only just managed to slide her finger nail across the wax seal when the owl with Hermione's letter from Kingsley had come and had made its presence known, and she hadn't had a chance to read through Poppy's reply on the letter she had sent the day prior, minutes before Hermione's arrival, before she had sent the letter to ask Poppy's advice on Hermione's situation. The Medi-witch's response to this had come fast. In it, Poppy Pomfrey had said that she would send her reply to Minerva's first letter as well, but that she wanted to do some 'research' first.

_Minerva,_

_Apologies for my tardy reply on the Time-Turner matter. However, since I don't know of any other Time-Turner accidents like you described, I felt the need to take a look at my old records first. I did not find any information that was of relevance so far, but I will continue to look for references to what you've detailed elsewhere, or similar. Of course, I will keep you up to date on my findings._

_I don't doubt you had hoped for more than this from me, and I regret that I don't have any answers right now. I can imagine that you're very distressed. Either way, I am glad that you informed me of what has happened. I am sure that it will still be a big shock to see you how you were at thirty-four. From what I've understood, I'm likely to believe this kind of 'accidental magic' is irreversible in all ways, too, but I can't say that with certainty right now. If it is indeed irreversible, you can't not inform Kingsley ── as objectionable as it is._

_I'll admit I was rather worried after I got your owl and read your letter, though. You stated your body bears scars that it had this time fifty years ago, as well as traumas, and that that's how you determined your 'new age', so to speak. That put my thoughts into motion. I do not know if my 'theory' is right in any way, though, and there is no way to test it, so I won't discuss my thoughts any further at this juncture, but I'm afraid of what this occurrence might all imply for hereafter. As it is, once I am back at Hogwarts as well, I shall keep a close eye on you for now. Until then, I ask of you to do inform me at once should you experience strange bodily changes._

_Either way, I will be glad to be back at Hogwarts again. It is nice to 'have a break', as they say, but I am always happy to come home, too._

_Love,  
Poppy_

Minerva McGonagall re-folded the letter with a sigh. Poppy hadn't had to say it per se for her to discern the direction the Medi-witch's thoughts had followed when she received the ex-Headmistress' news, with the Hogwarts matron's request to come to her at once with any strange bodily changes. Injuries, she knew.

Truthfully, Minerva hadn't considered Poppy's theory herself. Since the ankle injury was a part of her 'new' ── or old ── appearance new, maybe it made sense to believe that other injuries she had had would be part of the 'relived past', at least physically. A part of the ex-Headmistress _knew_ that Poppy's theory couldn't be false when she took all in consideration, but still, she hoped the Medi-witch was mistaken. She had suffered many serious injuries in her life, and she wasn't particularly fond of the idea of her body, the part of her that had returned in time, having to go through all of it again in the next few years and decades, should the incident indeed prove to be irreversible. She didn't know if she could go through all of it again. After all, a part of her was still eighty-four right now.

She left the letter from Poppy on the low table as she got up and made for the door. The Gryffindor decided to go to the library for the first time in what had nearly been a decade. When she reached the bottom of the old staircase, a small smile came upon the Animagus' lips. She morphed mid-air as she jumped off of the last few stairs and, as a cat, landed safely on her paws before she sprinted the rest of the way to the library. She ignored her sore ankle for now. The men, women and children in the portraits that hung on the walls stared after her as she did, most of them in shock as they recognized her. She hadn't left her rooms in a very long time.

When she morphed back in her human self at the third-floor Hogwarts library entrance, Minerva McGonagall took a breath and smiled wider. She wasn't even breathless. Oh, how she had missed this in the last few years... When she entered the dark library, she waved her wand and with it lit the candles on the walls, between the shelves of books upon books, and made for the Restricted Section right away. This was her very best guess for information on not-supposed-to-happen magical accidents. She supposed that any accidents with Time-Turners ── special timepieces of which the use and mere possession were very strictly regulated by, literally, hundreds of laws ── would fit in this section of the large library.

As she let her green eyes slide over titles on the backs of the books ever so slowly, Minerva pulled a few books from the old and dusty shelves from which she suspected held information for her, if not based on her own 'incident', then maybe on similar ones of other people. She knew that time travel generally became dangerous ── _more dangerous_ , since time travel was rather dangerous either way ── once a person travelled any further back in time than five hours. She had travelled back in time fifty years... or part of her had anyway.

When she had gathered a few books in her arm, Minerva decided to take a look at those already and walked to the nearby table meant for students to study at and seated herself with a sigh. She knew that her chances were rather small, of finding any information that was of relevance to her situation, but she had to try. As she reached for the book on top of the pile ── unusually ragged, unusually heavy ── Minerva McGonagall was interrupted by a very familiar voice, near her.

"So, it is true..."

A small smile spread upon Minerva's face again when she recognized the voice, although she hadn't heard it in a very long time. She didn't turn back to the portrait she knew he occupied temporarily to speak to her when she replied, "What is true, Albus?"

"You're well aware..." Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore responded as he eyed her new yet old appearance, over the rim of his half-moon spectacles.

At least, Minerva turned. She quirked her eyebrow when she saw her former best companion had wedged himself beside an exceptionally fat horse in an exceptionally small frame. "I've got no clue how they could know, or how word can travel so fast to begin with, but I will guess the portraits have talked?" When Albus didn't confirm this, nor deny, she continued, in a soft tone, "I've had a small incident with my Time-Turner. It burst in my hands yesterday."

"Small?" Minerva's predecessor repeated disbelievingly, as his eyes slid over her incredible youthful appearance.

Minerva's eyes twinkled, and a small smile played at the corner of her thin lips. "Indeed, Albus," she responded, even though she knew his question had been a more rhetorical one, " _Small_."

After a few long seconds of being unable to find the right words to speak of the many emotions she felt, she just smiled up at him and stayed quiet. She had missed him. She had missed him so very much. She wanted to tell him how she felt then, like she had when he was alive and well so often, but her mind was so damn jumbled right now.

"What is it you seek, Minerva?" Albus asked as he nodded to the low pile of books on the table Minerva was seated at.

The ex-Headmistress' green eyes landed upon the books briefly, before she met her former best companion's gaze again. Albus' question pulled Minerva from her reverie. Maybe he was still her best companion now, despite everything ── despite death. The last few years really seemed to melt away when she spoke to him. "Information," she said very simply, "On any and all Time-Turner accidents really," she clarified. "I told Poppy of this, and she has a theory ── not on how it happened, but on what to expect from now on. I have managed to determine my appearance corresponds with how I was in '69, because I have the ankle injury I had then. Remember?"

"Oh, I remember." Albus' brow furrowed when he realized the direction Poppy's and now Minerva's mind had taken. "Both of you believe, maybe fear, you'll go through all physical changes again, since you have that ankle injury as well."

"Exactly... While I'm somehow younger, a big part of me is still eighty-four. I don't know how much the age of my mind and soul would contribute to my survival or non-survival if this incident is irreversible, like we believe, but it must play a part, and then I don't know how I would live through the Stunner attack again, for instance. I would have to be very lucky to get through it twice."


	35. Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Hermione was very glad that Molly and Arthur had taken the news as well as they had. Both of them accepted her decision not to get back together with Ron yet keep the baby, as well as her very late job switch, from the Ministry to Hogwarts. She hadn't had much time for Rose and Hugo in later years due to her job and her, absolutely unmatched, work ethic. Everyone knew. This change would only be in the Gryffindor's benefit, as well as all three of Ron's and her children.

"Right," Hermione spoke to catch both of her children's attention, and two pairs of Weasley blue eyes looked right at her ── both Rose and Hugo had inherited their father's eyes.

She hadn't really minded Ron's silence, as Hermione thought it would be best that they didn't risk a new fight when the children were right there. Their father had made sure that Rose and Hugo were ready to go upon her arrival, so she hadn't had to stay a minute longer than necessary at any rate, for which she was... very grateful right now.

The brunette's heart hammered in her throat as she extended a shaky hand to one of her children each. She could only hope for the next conversation to go over smoothly, too. "Today, I thought we should visit someone together," she announced. "If you'll both take a hand and──"

"You'll Apparate with us?!" Rose interrupted, clearly excited.

Despite herself, Hermione couldn't help but smile at Rose's thirst for knowledge. She recognized so much of her younger self in her daughter. "Indeed," Hermione confirmed.

"Where to?" Hugo asked.

"You'll see."

 _Determination. Destination. Deliberation._ A clap.

Seconds later, Hermione and the children stood in Hogsmeade already, a few yards from Hogwarts' entrance gates. When her eye fell upon the castle's many towers and turrets, the word 'home' somehow popped into Hermione's mind. She let her gaze travel down, eyed Rose and Hugo with worry. Neither of them had Apparated before, after all. "Both of you okay?" she asked.

"That felt so weird..." Hugo sounded, and his ginger-haired and blue-eyed thirteen-year-old sister agreed with him with a nod.

"No nausea?" Hermione asked. Neither Rose nor Hugo shook their head, and Hermione was relieved and glad that her children's first travel with Apparition had gone this well.

Both followed their mother when she began the brief walk to the enchanted iron gates, but neither of their gazes was upon Hermione as they let their eyes slide over the many shop windows of Hogsmeade ── Rose Weasley wasn't yet allowed to go visit town, after all ── and thus failed to notice how Hogwarts Castle only became bigger, with every step they took in their mother's wake.

"Mom, where──?" Hugo began, but then small gasps sounded and Rose interrupted him, as both gazed in wide-eyed fascination at Hogwarts from this angle. Hermione Granger was certain that a look similar to theirs adorned her face many years ago as well. When she first set foot in Hogwarts, she had known all about it already from _Hogwarts: A History_ , but to see it for real had been a whole other experience in itself.

"She's Apparated us to Hogwarts!" Rose exclaimed.

"That's right," Hermione confirmed, a small smile on her lips at Rose's accuracy just as the tall enchanted gates opened at the brunette's touch upon wrought iron ── Hogwarts Castle recognized her. "I'd like for you both to meet someone. Then, I should tell you a few things," she added.

"What kind of things?"

"I'll tell you very soon."

The rest of their walk passed as quietly as possible. Rose thought that Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry looked strange, as opposed to how it usually did ── when it was full of magic students. She couldn't determine the differences exactly, though.

"I thought we could go and see Professor McGonagall today," Hermione announced as she set foot in Hogwarts' entrance hall and the tall, oak doors fell shut, "When I first attended Hogwarts, she was my Head of House as well as professor in Transfiguration. When I returned to Hogwarts for my last year after the war, Professor McGonagall had taken on the Headmistress position. She's been retired for several years already, though," Hermione added when she saw her daughter's mouth open, "but I am certain that you've seen her on old photos of mine or elsewhere," she said. _Or at least an older version._

Hermione and the children didn't come across anyone ── even ghosts ── as she lead them the way to Minerva's and soon their rooms, through Hogwarts' abandoned hallways. Hermione's brow didn't furrow until she still didn't hear any sounds come from within the former headmistress' rooms after four knocks on the hard-wooden door. _Where can she be?_ _Professor Flitwick might know_ , she considered. _That is, if he is at the castle, himself, because he's undoubtedly busy, with the new school year so close now._

She was taken a bit aback, as she turned to go to the Headmaster's office and was surprised at Nearly Headless Nick's appearance; a gasp left Hugo's mouth as the Gryffindor spirit materialized, so to speak. Nearly Headless Nick nodded at Hugo politely, then repeated the gesture towards Rose and, at last, Hermione herself. "Good morning, Hermione," he greeted.

"Good morning, Sir Nicholas," Hermione offered. "Would you happen to have any idea at all of Minerva's whereabouts?"

"Ah... I've seen her in the library earlier, I believe."

"The library?"

"Indeed," Nick confirmed. "Would you like me to inform her of your arrival?"

Hermione Granger bit down on her lip and thought. "Eh... No," she decided. "I do not wish to be a disturbance. We'll return later, and I'll send her an owl then or..."

"Nonsense," came a strict, authoritarian voice, and Hermione's gaze fell upon the woman to whom the voice ── a voice that she would recognize _anywhere ──_ belonged.

**Author's Note:**

> Please review.


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